ifes Gateways 



F/AILYS-BOUTON 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Chap.._u Copyright No 

Sheli._i 3. 



i._ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LIFE'S GATEWAYS; OR, HOW TO WIN 
REAL SUCCESS 



LIFE'S GATEWAYS 



HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS 



BY 



EMILY S; BOUTON 

Author of " Health and Beauty," "Social Etiquette," "House and 
home Decoratiaa," etc. 



" Oh, Friend, never strike sail to fear. 
Come into port grandly, or sail with God the seas." — Emerson. 





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ARENA PUBLISHING COMPANY ^ W 
Copley Square 
1896 



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Copyrighted, 1896, by 
EMILY S. BOUTON. 

All Rights Reserved. ^k %UflM ' 



Arena Press. 



TO 
THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR 

WHOSE LOVE REACHES ACROSS THE 

SEEMING GULF 

BETWEEN LIFE IN THE BODY 

AND LIFE OUT OF IT, 

A STRENGTH ALWAYS AND AN INSPIRATION 

TO HIGH ENDEAVOR, 

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY 

INSCRIBED. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 
II 



CHAPTER. 

I. Law is Universal 

II. The Rule of Life 19 

III. To Gain Life's Prizes 27 

IV. True Liberty, which is Self-Mastery 33 

V. Self-Dependence 39 

VI. The Value of Concentration 46 

VII. A Purpose in Drudgery 53 

VIII. What is Success ? 60 

IX. Potent Elements of Success 68 

X. A Saving Power 74 

XL Do Honest Work 81 

XII. The Right Attitude 89 

XIII. The Day of Small Things 98 

XIV. The Great Procession 107 

XV. Do not Look Backward 114 

XVI. Change means Growth 121 

XVII. Help Yourself 131 

XVIII. A Source of Weakness 138 

XIX. Power of Faith 146 

XX. Unwisdom of Anger 153 

XXI. Be not Selfish in Love 159 

XXII. A Word to Girls 165 

XXIII. My Forest Friend 175 

XXIV. Glory of the Springtime 180 



PREFACE. 

The simple talks, which do not pretend to rise 
into the dignity of essays, that make up this vol- 
ume have appeared from time to time in The 
Toledo Blade, and the author is indebted to the 
courtesy of its publisher for permission to reprint 
them in this collected form in accordance with 
the numerous requests received from their readers. 

These talks contain nothing new. They only 
repeat, again and again, truths which are as old 
as humanity itself — truths which, recognized and 
acted upon, would bring the highest success pos- 
sible to human attainment. If they seem strange 
to any, it is because, in the rush after material 
prosperity, everything has been brought down to 
a purely physical basis, whereas it is the spiritual, 
which, through the mental, is at the root of all 
that is, has been, or ever will be upon any plane. 

For the help which the writers, both living and 
dead, whose words are so often quoted in the fol- 
lowing pages, have been to the author, she desires 
to here make acknowledgment. For the many 



10 PREFACE. 

letters of tender appreciation of her own efforts 
to help others as she herself has been helped, she 
offers grateful thanks. 

That this volume may aid those who are weary 
to bear their burdens more easily, may inspire 
the timid with greater courage, may point to 
those who have not yet seen them the open gate- 
ways to a life successful in its highest sense, is 
the earnest wish of the writer, 

Emily S. Bouton. 



LIFE'S GATEWAYS. 



CHAPTER I. 

LAW IS UNIVERSAL. 

"Every time we conquer ourselves we are helping others to 
conquer themselves." 

Law is operative everywhere. 

It is just as potent upon the mental plane as 
upon the physical, although we have not yet 
learned to trace the effects so clearly when it is 
broken upon the former. 

It is easy enough to see that the repeated blows 
with an axe upon the trunk of a growing tree will 
interrupt the flow of its life-blood, narrowing its 
channels constantly, and if continued, will finally 
cut them off entirely, and death will be the result. 

Every child knows that if he pulls up the plants 

in his flower-garden, when the summer comes he 

will have no blossoms, but the weeds will run riot 

everywhere. 

1 1 



12 LIFE'S GATEWAYS; 

Whenever we put ourselves in the way of an 
advancing force, we are the sufferers just in pro- 
portion as that force is greater than any we can 
exert in opposition. In the physical world man 
knows these things, but in the mental and spirit- 
ual, he is not yet prepared to recognize the work- 
ings of this law. For it is law operative upon all 
planes, and there is no condition in life which is 
not the result of conformity with it or disobedi- 
ence to its requirements. The sooner we recog- 
nize this fact the better. Emerson says : " The 
day of days, the great day of the feast of life, is 
that in which the inward eye opens to the Unity 
in things, to the omnipresence of law — sees that 
what is must be and ought to be, or is best." 
When this truth enters thoroughly into our con- 
sciousness then are we born into power. 

And why ? 

Because every pain that we suffer, every mis- 
fortune that comes to us, every disappointment 
we meet is simply the working of law to bring 
us into harmony with itself, and thus with the 
Divine. Harmony is the great undertone of 
nature, and whoever produces discord must suffer 
the consequences until the discord ceases, other- 
wise universal chaos would be the result. This is 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 3 

why " what is must be and ought to be, or is the 
best." 

I know this is a hard thing to accept. It is far 
easier and more agreeable to believe that a mys- 
terious Providence has taken a hand in afflicting 
us in a way that sometimes seems to the most un- 
questioning, a little capricious, to put it no more 
strongly. When, however, it is seen that the 
suffering has come because somewhere and some- 
time, consciously or unconsciously, a law has been 
broken, then this, the penalty, becomes easier to 
bear, for with the sufferer rests the speedy resto- 
ration of the lost harmony. 

If this truth could become the ruling sentiment 
of the nation then the present condition of un- 
rest and discontent would pass away. It is not 
strange that there is discontent, for greed and 
lawless competition, the handmaidens of selfish- 
ness, are uppermost, and their clamorings are fast 
silencing the voice of brotherhood. Who that 
are riding the crest of the wave successfully care 
for the farmer who is growing poorer every year ; 
care that pauperism in our cities is increasing day 
by day ; care that the laborer is without his hire ; 
care that poverty is grinding the life out of the 
many whose numbers are increasing constantly. 



14 life's gateways ; 

Yet even these conditions, seeming to grow 
worse daily, are not without their brighter side. 
They are teaching the people through suffering to 
think, and with thought will come a perception 
of the truth which must prevail in order to re- 
store the true relations of things, to bring back 
the reign of law upon all planes. " When souls 
reach a certain clearness of perception they ac- 
cept a knowledge and motive above selfishness." 
Once accepted and the will aroused, they are 
carried forward into action. And so though the 
social, political, and financial future of this people 
may look dark, though it may seem as if every 
plant which might flower into greater mental and 
spiritual growth was being pulled up even to the 
roots, yet the perception that the moral laws, 
which come from the Unity of Life, are being 
broken is becoming stronger, and with the arous- 
ing of the will, a change for the better will finally 
come, even though it be through widespread pain 
and suffering. 

How does this affect us individually ? What 
have you or I to do with it ? 

Vital questions these, but easily answered, when 
one stops to consider the universality of the law 
of cause and effect. We have, each and all of us, 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 5 

a share of responsibility for the discord which 
prevails everywhere. Whenever we break a law ; 
whenever we are dishonest with ourselves or 
others ; whenever we fail, in thought or deed, to 
control that lower self within us which is con- 
stantly striving to hold the soul within its own 
narrow limits, then we are adding to the discords 
which nature, with all of her might, is endeavor- 
ing through pain to turn again into harmony. 
The sentence at the head of this article tells ex- 
actly what, as individuals, we have to do in the 
present. " Every time we conquer ourselves we 
are helping others to conquer themselves." It is 
not so much the possession of passions, of selfish 
desires, that is to be regretted, but it is the 
failure to make of them " weapons and wings," 
with which to fight the good fight, and then to 
rise into higher, clearer atmospheres of moral and 
spiritual being. And not one can so rise but 
others are uplifted, are strengthened for duty, are 
stimulated to effort. 

This is as true of the man or the woman who 
lives afar off in the lonely farmhouse as of the 
dweller in the city, for the self is to be conquered 
in one place as well as in another. Then, too, 
the pleasant, loving, harmonious thought may be 



1 6 life's gateways ; 

sent out with equal force from all places. There 
is no limit to the power of a true spirit of help- 
fulness. It does not matter where we are or how 
situated, it is the good intention which is potent. 
" When a god wishes to ride, any chip or pebble 
will bud and shoot out winged feet and serve 
him for a horse." This is law — that the earnest 
desire to help humanity will always, sooner or 
later, bring the opportunity. 

I think then, that it is not hard to see a duty 
falling upon each to aid nature in restoring the 
harmony which we have all helped to destroy. 
It is certain that pain and suffering will continue 
until the discords wrought by selfishness cease, 
and well indeed is it for us in the finality that it 
is so. Writes Emerson : " Let us build altars to 
the Blessed Unity which holds nature and soul in 
perfect solution, and compels every atom to serve 
an universal end. Let us build to the beautiful 
Necessity which makes man brave in believing 
that he cannot shun a danger that is appointed, 
nor incur one that is not ; to the Necessity which 
rudely or softly educates him to the perception 
that there are no contingencies ; that law rules 
throughout existence ; a Law which is not intelli- 
gence ; not personal nor impersonal — it disdains 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 7 

words and passes understanding ; it dissolves per- 
sons ; it vivifies nature ; yet solicits the pure in 
heart to draw on all its omnipotence." 

The perception of this truth — the universality of 
Law — is, as I said, growing in the hearts and 
minds of people day by day. To the earnest 
watcher for the better time, lights are gleaming 
in the horizon, shooting now and then upwards 
towards the zenith of accomplishment, and they 
come from the larger comprehension of unity. 

Where are the lights of which I am speaking ? 

I see them in the higher education, the greater 
intelligence of the women who are, and are to be, 
the mothers of the nations. I see them in the 
broader thought, the more generous tolerance 
which, in spite of efforts to the contrary, are mak- 
ing way among the people. I see them in the 
unselfish working for the good of distressed 
humanity, and not for humanity alone, but for the 
relief of suffering animal life. I see them in the 
many unions for practical work in the way of 
bettering bad conditions and evil environments. 
And above all I see them in the outreaching for 
spiritual truth, visible everywhere. It permeates 
the literature of the day. By one way or another 
the struggling thought is being led upward, and 



1 8 LIFE S GATEWAYS; 

it matters little which is taken so long as it is 
followed with love as the watchword of action, 
and the end in truth. For the end of all honest, 
unselfish living is truth, and he who says lo here, 
or lo there, to any high moral purpose because 
not springing from the soil of his own conviction 
simply falls into the pit of self-righteousness. 

It is this great outburst of desire to compre- 
hend and live a higher spiritual life ; in the larger 
appreciation of what is meant by the brother- 
hood of man ; by the many movements for the 
betterment of his condition ; in the increasing num- 
bers of those who sacrifice self to work for others 
— it is in all these that I see the lights that mark 
the dawn of a brighter day, a day when the uni- 
versality of Law upon all of the planes of being 
will be generally acknowledged, and life be shaped 
in accordance with its demands. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE RULE OF LIFE. 

"If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains ; 
If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains." 

In the two lines quoted above, George Herbert 
put the philosophy of life. He expresses the fact 
that whatever may be the first gratification of 
wrongdoing the " joy " gradually fades away, 
and then the " pains," which the joy had veiled, 
appear and remain insistently with the doer until 
the wrong is expiated through his own action in 
good. There is absolutely no getting away from 
the consequences only by right effort ; no escaping 
the results of disobeying law, either here or here- 
after, only through individual work. You may 
be sorry all you choose ; repentance may come to 
be your normal condition, but neither sorrow nor 
repentance will avail anything in abating the 
" pains " which somewhere and somehow must 
come, without they are put into expression in 
unselfish action. 



20 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

And the keynote of the second line is as true 
to the law divine as the first. A right deed, an 
unselfish action, a resistance to temptation may, 
and often does, involve the keenest anguish in 
the beginning, but the anguish softens away 
and, at last, is lost utterly in the joy of having 
acted true to ourselves, or, in other words, of 
having listened to and obeyed the voice of that 
inner, diviner self which is always striving to 
make itself heard above the world's din and clamor. 
That voice will tell us to do many things that 
will war with our lower nature, that animal part 
of the human being which seeks to be master. 

This is really the only thing we have to be 
afraid of in this world. Our own selfish desires, 
our passions that hold us in their grasp with a 
grip of steel and forever demand satisfaction, 
make up all there is to fear here or hereafter. 

In one of Rev. Charles G. Ames's sermons is 
the following : " Nothing in heaven is so good 
that we might not have it here. The earth is 
the home of God as truly as it is the home of 
man. Heaven means a higher condition of man- 
kind. There is no heaven until we rise out of 
folly, selfishness, and sensuality ; no heaven so 
long as money stands for more than man, so long 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 21 

as any are willing to be rich by keeping others 
poor." 

This is only another way of stating the same 
truth — that into our everyday lives we must 
bring the consciousness of the presence of the 
Infinite Good, and endeavor to lift ourselves 
" out of folly, selfishness, and sensuality." Does 
this seem a hard thing to do ? Granted. And 
yet there is not one who may not, little by little, 
come sometime into the higher condition that 
means heaven. Little by little ! That is the 
encouraging part of it, that we are not required 
to reach it at a single bound. Each day some- 
thing done towards overcoming a fault ; the bonds 
of some vicious habit weakened ; the love of the 
true and the beautiful strengthened ; service to 
others becoming the law of our actions — these 
are-the possible things which advance us towards 
the heavenly condition. 

We do not need, in working thus for spiritual 
growth, to allow ourselves to be terrorized by 
any stories of a personal devil created by a loving 
Father to rage up and down the earth seeking 
whom he may devour. There never was — and 
there never will be — one single pain, because of 
wrong doing, that faded into the joy brought by 



22 LIFE'S GATEWAYS ; 

obedience to Divine Law, when that obedience 
was the result of fear. There is no devil save 
our own unchecked, uncontrolled passions. These 
are what we have to fight and conquer. 

Nor should we be forever straining toward a 
reward for right action. The heavenly condition 
of which Mr. Ames speaks does not admit of 
selfishness, and that work which looks solely to a 
personal gain, even though it be the happiness of 
life after death, has in it what is far from Christ- 
like self-forgetfulness. 

The way to live — the only right way to live — 
is to put away that overweening sense of personal 
rights and merit which we all have more or less, 
which is the motive power of much that we do, 
and which makes the struggles that turn life into 
such a weariness, if it does not reach a misery. 
We can, if we will, bring into each day the higher 
thought, and dwell in a spiritual atmosphere of 
love and joy. When, each morning, we open our 
eyes to the light of the new day, we may open 
our hearts also to the inflowing of the omnipresent 
good, shutting away, if only for a few moments, 
the thought of the cares, the perplexities, the 
pains that are to be met and endured later. En- 
durance will then be easier, for in that omnipresent 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 23 

good is a vivifying force, a light of love that 
strengthens and energizes heart and hands, and 
drives the clouds away. 

You see the present is, humanly speaking, all 
that we have in which to enjoy, or to suffer, or to 
work. And there is never an hour which passes 
out of which we may not gain something of 
pleasure upon the physical and mental planes, or 
of growth upon the spiritual side of our natures, 
the latter, of course, being by far the most im- 
portant. 

The present hour is the time for character- 
building. We do not, in one sense, need to look 
beyond it, for if we do its duty, whatever that may 
be,we are prepared for the duty of the next, and the 
next, and so on, until, no matter what may come, 
our strength is equal to the need. I do not mean 
that we are to lay no plans for the future. That 
would be the sheerest folly, and, indeed, it may 
form the largest part of the duty of the present 
hour. After we have laid them, however, it is 
worse than useless to worry over the chance of 
their miscarrying ; to cloud the sunshine of the 
day with apprehensions lest misfortune come. 
Many people invite failure by this darkening of 
their mental aura with doubts and fears, diminish- 



24 LIFE'S GATEWAYS; 

ing their power to meet and overcome difficul- 
ties which might never have appeared had they 
not been so invited. 

When we find ourselves fussing and worrying 
over the future, a wise thing to do is to remem- 
ber that right here and now, in the hour that is 
passing, perhaps lies the great opportunity of our 
lives. If we are looking ever beyond, ever for- 
ward to other hours that may or may not come 
while we are in these physical bodies, this 
opportunity perchance will slip by us unperceived. 
And no doubt many that would be worth much 
to us are lost precisely in this way. The fact is, 
there is never a moment that is not crowded with 
opportunities of some kind, which will mean much 
or little to us according to our reception of them. 
They may seem the veriest trifles to be seized or 
let alone as we fancy without producing any last- 
ing effect, but this is not so. " Do little things 
now," says a Persian proverb, " so shall big things 
come to thee by and by asking to be done." It 
is the " now" which may color our whole future. 

The present moment, the present opportunity, 
the present surroundings are those that we are to 
make the most of There is as much chance to 
build character, to grow spiritually — the most im- 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 25 

portant thing in life — in washing dishes, if it comes 
to us to do, in darning stockings, in sweeping out 
a store, as in leading an army. The homeliest 
task of the hour may be glorified by the way in 
which it is done, by the spirit exercised in its 
doing. 

There is a little verse running in this wise : 

" It was only a glad ' good morning ' 
As she passed along the way, 
But it spread the morning's glory 
Over the live-long day. 

Only a thought in passing — a smile or encouraging word — 
Has lifted many a burden no other gift could have stirred. 
Only ! But then the onlys 
Make the mighty all." 

It is indeed the " onlys " that make up the 
mighty all, and they come to us every hour. 

The flowers blossom at our feet, and we do not 
notice them. We have loved ones, a comfort- 
able home, power to work, and we turn our eyes 
away to look into next week, or next year, for 
what may be stored therein. And we never know 
what they may be bringing to us, whether of good 
or ill, and so the true wisdom lies in gathering 
the precious things out of each hour as it goes 
by. Work in the present ; enjoy the present. 



26 LIFE'S GATEWAYS; 

Do not shut the eyes to the gold of to-day's sun- 
light because that of the morrow may be brighter. 
Speak the good word ; think the pleasant thought ; 
do this hour's whole duty, and the next, with all 
coming ones, will take care of their own. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 2/ 



CHAPTER III. 

TO GAIN LIFE'S PRIZES. 

" Life will yield its own to each, 
Let nothing slip beyond your reach." 

And what is our own ? It is the veiy best 
that life offers upon both the material and the 
spiritual plane. It is ours if we bring to its seek- 
ing the right spirit and keep fast to the deter- 
mination to win. It is the attitude of mind 
which we hold in our efforts that attracts the 
elements of success or failure. 

A bright young woman said to me not long 
ago with regard to something she desired to ac- 
complish: "I shall do it. How, I do not know 
yet, but all the same it will be done." And I 
have not the slightest doubt as to her success. 
The very tones of her voice in speaking these 
words showed that she possesses the key which 
will unlock the door of opportunity and disclose 
the way. 

A truth which bears upon what I am saying is 



28 life's gateways; 

told under the guise of a fairy story. A child 
was christened and the fairies brought to him 
gifts. " He was endowed with a creative mind 
that should conceive great works, and with 
patience to work ; with an eye to recognize beauty 
and a judgment to discern truth ; with gifts of 
mind and heart that should win friends, and with 
loyalty that should keep them." 

Then came a spiteful old fairy, chagrined that 
she should arrive late, and, angered by the ex- 
clamations of the good fairies that she could not 
hurt the child, because they had given to him so 
much that he would have nothing to fear, she ad- 
vanced to the cradle and waved her stick over it, 
saying, " Here is my gift. He shall never be 
able to believe in himself." 

It is the one thing of all that makes his life 
a failure. It blights all his other possessions. 
" Daily he sees other men with half his gifts pass 
him and go forward toward the prizes which 
might have been his too ; while he stands bound 
fast in the web woven by his enemy, only a 
looker-on at the life in which he thinks he is un- 
worthy to take a part." 

He fears defeat, and thus invites it. He 
doubts everybody, and his doubt is repaid by 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 29 

deceit and disloyalty. And it all comes from a 
lack of faith in himself, in his own power to 
accomplish, in his own possession of the qualities 
that will make and hold friends. The bad fairy 
is at his elbow always, to compel the use of her 
gift. 

We sometimes wonder why one person, with 
apparently no more ability than another, and 
with outwardly equal opportunities, is so much 
more successful in what makes up material pros- 
perity. Without going any deeper into the 
philosophy of the difference — for there are causes 
that reach far back of the present — in nine cases 
out of ten this will be found true : The one is 
sure he can carry out his undertaking ; the other 
fears failure. 

It is temperament, say you ? Well, then, the 
fearful individual must overcome temperament, 
for it is certain that as he allows doubt and fear 
to hold his thought, by so much their essence 
enters into his action and diminishes his 
chances of success. It does not all lie in the 
outward act. There is an unseen spiritual force 
that pervades everything we do, and it rests with 
ourselves to decide which way this shall operate. 
Faith, hope, courage, give it the impulse by which 



30 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

it helps our efforts. Fear, doubt, discouragement, 
change its tendency and bring us weakness in- 
stead of strength. 

Trace any great enterprise to its first begin- 
nings and it will be found to have been conceived 
by one person who had all confidence in the out- 
come. If he took what men call chances, they 
were not chances to him, in the sense of involving 
fear. He believed in himself, in his own judg- 
ment, in his power to succeed, and while he did 
not despise the opinions and experience of others, 
they did not control his action against his own 
conviction. 

" Life will yield its own to each." 

The trouble is we do not know how to take 
what lies within our reach. The beauty and 
glory of the world are close at our hand, but we 
see only the clay. The present is full of a potency 
that we do not grasp, because we are looking 
doubtfully forward into the future of may-be. 
Could we only seize the opportunities of to-day, 
utilizing them to the utmost, leaving to-morrow 
to take care of itself, there is little worth having 
which we might not make our own, if we so 
desired. 

This hopeful, courageous attitude is the one 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 3 1 

for us to assume in our daily living. We should 
hold fast to it, even when it seems as if there were 
not a ray of light to gleam through the darkness 
anywhere ; hold fast though it appears as if the 
very heavens turn a brazen face to our pleadings 
for help. 

" But it is beyond our power," cry one and 
another who have been called to wade through 
the deep waters. " It is not possible." 

Ah ! yes. Hard it may be, but not impossible. 
Perhaps this thought may help such stricken 
ones. We are told, and it is certainly true, that 
none are tried beyond their strength. If your 
burdens are heavy to bear, it is because you have 
earned the right to the higher lesson designed to 
be taught. The advanced scholar is always given 
the most difficult problems to be solved, and as 
courage, and patience, and hope endure, so is the 
student's mental progress made greater. The 
same law obtains as to spiritual growth. Recog- 
nizing this as a truth, and to bear grows easier. 

The power which mind may be made to exer- 
cise over what is called matter, is coming to be 
more clearly understood, day by day, as being 
under the government of law, and to a far greater 
extent than has been imagined. What I am 



32 life's gateways ; 

talking about as to the influence of a hopeful 
attitude persisted in, in bringing good results, is 
not a mere belief, the child of a vivid imagina- 
tion, but something that is being constantly de- 
monstrated as a law, the observation of which is 
rapidly growing. 

Believe in yourself, not with a selfish egotism 
that decries all around you, but with such rever- 
ence for the "god that is within you" as to 
render failure impossible. Man's undeveloped 
forces which evolution is gradually bringing to 
his knowledge, are many times greater than 
those which are developed, and the future will 
tell a wonderful story. But to-day, with fear dis- 
missed, with faith in yourself and the good, with 
hope and courage, there is scarcely a limit to 
your possible accomplishment, even in a material 
way, and none whatever to a higher spiritual 
advancement, which is above all, and beyond all, 
most worth striving for. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 33 



CHAPTER IV. 

TRUE LIBERTY, WHICH IS SELF-MASTERY. 

" He who, while living in this world and before the liberation 
of the soul from the body, can resist the impulse arising from 
desire and anger is a devotee and blessed." — Bhagavad-Gita. 

" THERE is no outer liberty apart from inner 
liberty ; control of affairs is first control of self, 
and ungoverned passions must forever mean ship- 
wreck of life, destruction, and death." 

In this expression from the pen of a philoso- 
pher is embodied a lesson which the world is ever 
being taught, which it is ever forgetting, but 
which must be learned and acted upon ere man- 
kind, as a whole, can reach any higher plane of 
real attainment than it occupies to-day. There 
is no outer liberty apart from inner liberty — that 
is, the nation which is dominated within itself by 
unworthy ambitions, by disregard for the rights 
of other nations, contains the seeds of inevitable 
decay and disintegration, in the not far distant 
future. The " inner liberty " means the life of 



34 LIFE'S GATEWAYS ; 

the soul as a controlling power, the soul which 
may be scoffed at and disregarded and yet which 
speaks at odd moments until its voice is lost in 
the rush and roar of the battle for purely mate- 
rial advantages. And this is as true of the nation 
as of the individual, for the soul of the nation is 
formed by the union of the souls of its units, and 
in proportion as the latter are controlled by the 
higher self, so will the nation progress to better 
and purer conditions. 

It is because of this interweaving of the lives 
of the people into a unified whole, that the re- 
sponsibility of individual action becomes so great. 
We are, each one of us, in this sense, our brother's 
keeper, and just so far as we allow ourselves to 
become the slave to ungoverned passion of any 
kind, just so far are we injuring every other mem- 
ber of that body of which we form a part. There 
is absolutely no such thing as separateness, prate 
as we may about independence. The only inde- 
pendence that we have, and even that is but par- 
tial, is that of the bodies which we, our real selves, 
are using as instruments during our physical lives. 
Nations whose policy is wholly selfish injure each 
other as individuals do, and their need for free- 
dom from ungoverned passion lest they shipwreck 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 35 

themselves is just as great. The same law applies 
to a municipality or a community. 

I was not, however, thinking so much of the 
" ungoverned passion " of a whole people when I 
quoted the opening paragraph, as of it as applied 
to our own personal lives day by day. This 
necessity of being master of one's self, of control- 
ling the passions of the body, is a law as old as 
humanity, and is always presented as that which 
is as necessary for material advancement as for 
spiritual growth. Yet knowing all this we go 
right on ignoring the inner voice, the voice of the 
soul, which is seeking to dominate the body, and 
allow the latter to tyrannize over us to our own 
undoing. 

Perhaps no writer has ever taught this so clearly 
as Shakespeare in his tragedies and historical 
plays. With this thought in the mind, let the 
reader follow them through and see how one and 
all show that an " ungoverned passion " brings 
final shipwreck to the outer life, as well as present 
moral ruin. 

Take, for instance, the lesson taught in the life 
of King John. Gradually, through the ever- 
strengthening lust for sovereignty and power, he 
left behind him every noble impulse, every heroic 



36 life's gateways ; 

quality that belongs to the nature of a man that 
is not wholly surrendered to the dominance of 
the lower self, and became the cruel, tyrannical 
character which the poet represents him, as the 
outcome of this surrender. The gradual develop- 
ment and growth of the worst passions as a re- 
sult of their indulgence are painted with the touch 
of a master who understands human nature. 

Then there are Lear, who is the victim of un- 
governed rage ; Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, who 
let ambition run riot and overmaster their sense 
of duty, even to the extent of forgetting the 
sacredness of human life ; Othello, whose jealousy 
grew and grew until he was its slave — all of these 
and more, Shakespeare used to emphasize this 
lesson, that, once wholly learned, places the prizes 
of life within easy reach. 

To bring this thought into our own daily life : 
There be many who will say, " This does not ap- 
ply to me, for I have no ungoverned passion which 
needs to be overcome." Are you sure ? Have 
you attained that inner liberty of the soul which 
makes it the master over the desires and tenden- 
cies of the animal self? Have you sure control 
of the quick temper which is ready to flame into 
anger at any encroachment upon what you believe 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 37 

to be your rights? Have you gained that higher 
patience, that resignation of self, which prevents 
the seeking of revenge for real or fancied wrongs ? 
Do you always guard the speech that may injure 
another through a repetition of what may be un- 
fortunate fact or wholly untruth ? Can you keep 
your integrity, you who are in the business world, 
under the temptation to get the advantage of 
your fellows in order to add to your own material 
prosperity ? Do you hold fast to your duty 
against fear or " the speech of people ? " If not, 
inner liberty in its fullness is not yours, but some- 
thing to be striven for. 

Of course, I do not mean that he who has not 
gained perfect control in all of these things is 
wholly ungoverned. We should, most of us, be 
in a sorry plight if that were true. This " inner 
liberty " is something of slow growth. Many are 
the steps of the ladder by which we climb heaven- 
ward. As individuals, however, there are few 
who have not some side upon which their moral 
defences are weak. Self-examination will show 
this to be true ; that is, if we look into our every- 
day lives with the purpose of being honest with 
ourselves. To deceive one's self as to the stage 
of goodness reached is very easy, especially in 



38 life's gateways ; 

those passions whose outward expression seems 
harmless and sometimes interesting, such as evil 
speaking of others in what is sometimes termed 
friendly gossip. 

There are those, however, that we know are 
wrong, that are never harmless, and yet we 
go right on reckless of consequences. Nothing, 
for instance, makes such havoc in the lives of 
ordinary men and women as the yielding to sud- 
den fits of anger. Indulged in, and they weaken 
the character ; they take away the power of in- 
fluencing others, for angry words have small 
weight ; they impel to actions which are often 
sadly regretted. The effect of a passion of anger 
goes far deeper than is often realized. 

Considering all these things carefully, looking 
upon life as we see and know it, studying results 
from the standpoint of the poet with his insight 
into human nature, we can well understand that 
there is indeed " no outer liberty apart from inner 
liberty" — the control by the soul of the physical 
body, its instrument. 



39 



CHAPTER V. 

SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

" Are you in earnest ? Seize this very minute. 
What you can do, or think you can, begin it." — Goethe. 

THE very first lesson for boys and girls to be 
taught is self-dependence. 

The second one is, that in their own hands lies 
largely the measure of the success which each 
may attain. 

I say boys and girls, although as a fact, boys 
do not need training in this direction to the same 
degree as do girls, because men are supposed to 
be the breadwinners of the family, and the women 
the home-makers. It has never, therefore, until 
recently, been thought necessary to give the 
latter this teaching. Pecuniary dependence upon 
father, husband, brother, son was considered 
natural and proper, and so ingrained has been 
the idea that even when this has failed them, the 
hardships met with in gaining enough to keep 
soul and body together for herself and children 
taught woman no lessons. She still went on 



40 LIFE'S gateways ; 

making all sorts of sacrifices that her sons might 
be put in a way to a comfortable living, if nothing 
more, and leaving her daughters to the chance of 
marrying and being taken care of by the sons of 
other women. And yet the iron has entered 
into the soul of many a wife and daughter, who 
has come to a realization that she was a pauper 
in the house of husband or father. 

Times have changed. Over the country has 
swept a wave of thought which has transformed 
many of the conditions of life. The opening of 
the avenues of industry to women has been fol- 
lowed by so great a rush therein as to show that 
the necessity, if not the desire, for self-dependence 
has come. Yet there is still altogether too much 
of the feeling that the place for woman is at 
home, — and this, whether she has one or not, — 
and that her whole duty and her pleasure lie in 
making herself attractive to men through her 
weakness and her dependence upon their strength. 

This idea is false from beginning to end. Side 
by side she stands with man, responsible for her 
own self-development, for her own character- 
growth. She must shape her own destiny, not 
as a woman, but as an individual upon the path 
of evolution towards the Divine. Anything 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 41 

which tends to dwarf her powers, to make her 
habitually lean upon others instead of upon her- 
self, hinders her own progress and takes from her 
the ability to help others. Self-dependence, even 
though it may seem to lead her into hard path- 
ways, is only the means to a higher end. I be- 
lieve with the author of " Women in the Business 
World," that " the woman who is and always has 
been sheltered and protected from all knowledge 
of the struggle for existence, has missed some- 
thing which would be of inestimable value to her 
to know. Every experience enriches one. The 
woman who has been forced out into the thick of 
the battle for bread has been more blessed than 
her sheltered sister, if only the experience has 
taught her to stand alone." 

Parents make the greatest possible mistake 
when they produce weakness in their daughters 
instead of strength, by fostering the idea of de- 
pendence, and this they do when they fail to 
train them so as to develop the ability to stand 
alone ; when they establish for them a sex-limita- 
tion by leaving them unprepared to battle with 
the world should the need come. And in these 
days, when changes follow each other so swiftly, 
no one is secure in prosperity. 



42 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

Some one has well said that to a sensitive 
woman there is no terror equal to the approach 
of poverty. I believe it. One may be mod- 
erately poor and yet walk onward undaunted, but 
to be absolutely penniless, unknowing where to 
turn for the next meal, or the next garment 
to cover the body's nakedness, must destroy 
self-respect if it be continued. You see, such 
poverty is a confession of weakness. It is, as 
some one has said, a mark of ignorance — " igno- 
rance of one's value, powers, talent, strength, and 
right to joint ownership in the best the world 
has." And the best which the world has belongs 
equally to all if they can take it. I do not mean 
by that, the wresting away by force what another 
has obtained, but gaining like prizes by a rightful 
use of the powers which all possess, and may use 
if they have been properly trained. 

Now this is what I mean by being self-depend- 
ent : It is attaining the consciousness of being 
master over circumstances, and able to mold 
them to our will. Boys and girls come into the 
world with the same ray from the Divine in each, 
in which exists the same potentialities. But boys 
are taught as soon as they can walk that they 
must carve out their own future, and so they 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 43 

make these potentialities realities, upon the ma- 
terial plane at least, to a greater or less degree. 
Girls, on the contrary, see that their parents, their 
friends, and society expect that their future will not 
be of their own shaping, but will rest in other 
hands than theirs. Until within a few years these 
conditions have been passively accepted, but the 
world moves, and women are beginning to per- 
ceive that pecuniary independence means for 
them just what it does for men, greater strength, 
greater influence, greater means for self-develop- 
ment, and greater self-respect. 

To win this they must be prepared just as boys 
are expected to be prepared. Then they can 
stand alone, and even though the waves of sorrow 
and adversity beat upon them, they do not fear, 
because they know that they can conquer a place 
for themselves in the world. 

They do not fear. In that one sentence lies 
the key which will often unlock the door to suc- 
cess. Men fail in this respect as well as women, 
and it is because there is so much false teaching. 
In reality, failure should never be thought of, 
not even its possibility admitted. If difficulties 
arise they will vanish away if faced boldly, or 
grow apace if one tries to shrink out of their 



44 life's gateways ; 

sight. " Our greatest glory is not in never falling, 
but in rising every time we fall," but we cannot 
rise if fear takes all of our strength away. Charles 
Sumner once said that three things were necessary 
in life : " First, backbone ; second, backbone ; and, 
third, backbone," and he was altogether right. 
You see it is just as Robert Herrick declared : 

" The wise and active conquer difficulties, 
By daring to attempt them ; sloth and folly 
Shiver and sink at sight of toil and hazard, 
And make the impossibility they fear." 

Courage is what is needed, that kind of courage 
which the knowledge of the possession of power 
gives to the individual man or woman. And 
every one has this power, only that he does not 
recognize it. He does not know that there is 
within him that which makes him the king over 
circumstances and environment, if only he seizes 
the chance for its exercise. 

Teach boys and girls the beauty and the glory 
of self-dependence. Teach them that the disap- 
pointment of to-day is to give strength for the 
morrow, and therefore not to be groaned over. 
" Every time the sheep bleats it loses a mouthful, 
and every time we complain we lose a blessing." 
Teach them that they control their own lives ; 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 45 

that each must work out his own destiny ; make 
his own success ; reap his own harvest. And 
happy the man or woman whose success lies not 
alone in material things, but in the spiritual growth 
which is the true object of all living ; whose har- 
vest is that of good deeds, of unselfish work for 
humanity, of the fulfilling of the law of Universal 
Brotherhood. " Happy then is the man who has 
that in his soul which acts on others as the April 
sun on violets." 



46 life's gateways ; 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE VALUE OF CONCENTRATION. 

" Shun passions, fold the hands of thrift, 

Sit still and truth is near ; 
Suddenly it will uplift 

Your eyelids to the sphere. 
Wait a little, you shall see 
The portraiture of things to be." — Emerson. 

An ancient Chinese sage once made this caustic 
remark : " He looks at an egg and expects to hear 
it crow." 

This might in truth be applied to most of us 
in the present day and generation. The spirit of 
the age is rush and hurry. To go beneath the 
surface of things ; to be content with slow ad- 
vancement ; to patiently strive and struggle with 
concentrated purpose for what seems a goodly 
possession, has come to be looked upon with dis- 
taste and disapproval, as belonging to the methods 
of a slow-going past with which the present has 
nothing in common. Quick returns for all in- 
vestments, whether of time, labor, or money, are 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 47 

what are demanded, and with nothing else are 
we satisfied. So we rush onward, falling over 
each other in our eagerness to attain, and paying 
little heed to the fallen, not so much because of 
real hardness of heart, but that there is no time 
to pause by the wayside when the prize is still 
glittering in the distance. 

Rush and hurry have begotten a habit of 
mind which is an enemy to all permanent and 
valuable advancement. " Nature is too slow for 
us, and we forget that what we gain in speed we 
lose in depth." This loss is the key to the in- 
tense dissatisfaction and weariness with life which 
is so general with those who have been long 
enough in the race to diminish the vigor and dim 
the enthusiasm of youth, a natural result when 
the building up of mind and body does not keep 
in advance of, or remain equal to, the tearing 
down. 

How are we going to change this condition ? 
ask those who feel the truth in what is said here. 
We can only change it by altering our habits of 
mind ; by learning to concentrate our thought 
and our effort instead of scattering one and the 
other here, there, and everywhere. Concentra- 
tion, the power of holding a single mental attitude 



48 life's gateways ; 

for as long or as short a time as the mind wills, 
is the secret of all success. It is the gathering 
together of the unseen forces, which will bring a 
power that cannot be gained in any other way. 
There was never a human being who controlled 
great interests, who was at the head of great 
movements that affected the world, who, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, did not obey this law. 

All had their seasons of thought when they 
held themselves steadily to meditation upon the 
one thing in hand, until the mists of doubt as to 
action cleared away, and they were ready to take 
the next step forward. There is good reason for 
this. " Thought has a self-reproductive power, 
and when the mind is held steadily to one idea it 
becomes colored by it, and as we may say, all the 
correllates of that thought arise within the mind." 
That is, all that has a bearing on that idea is at- 
tracted to it as to a center, and can have its due 
influence upon its decision. It is this power of 
concentration that makes the great painter, the 
sculptor, the writer, the financier; and it is the 
lack of it that so often brings failure to undertak- 
ings that seemed to have in them every element 
of success. 

Thought is a creative force, but when it is sent 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 49 

from place to place, scurrying hither and thither, 
it can only make confused images which add 
nothing to the mental power. Edison could 
never have accomplished what he has, had he 
allowed his thoughts to rush off to things other 
than what he had in hand. While trying to dis- 
cover some new phase of the law governing the 
subtle fluid with which he was dealing, he did not 
turn away to study the philosophy of the tides, 
or any other problem, but simply fixed his at- 
tention steadily, unwaveringly upon the one ob- 
ject. 

Somewhere I have read that upon the prairies 
of South America grows a flower that always 
points in one direction. Travelers who have lost 
their way and come upon this little blossom have 
as sure a guide as chart or compass could give 
them, for no matter how the winds may blow, still 
the leaves point northward. It is one of Nature's 
examples of a fixedness of aim that knows no 
change under difficulties. 

One supreme purpose is a necessity to a suc- 
cessful life, to which purpose, within certain 
limits, everything else must be subordinated. 
** Concentration alone conquers." " Genius is in- 
tensity." It is absolutely true that the man or 



50 life's gateways ; 

woman without a definite aim, one upon which 
the energies are concentrated, never accomplishes 
much in the world. Even if one be compelled at 
times to turn the action away from the purpose, 
still must the thought be held as an undercurrent 
of force tending to its carrying out, and thus the 
final result is almost sure to be victory. Columbus 
wrote in his journal time after time, " This day we 
sailed westward, which was our course," showing 
how his whole thought was so concentrated upon 
the one thing that nothing could turn or swerve 
him from his purpose. 

A recent writer has said : " The weakest living 
creature, byconcentrating his powers on one thing, 
can accomplish something ; the strongest, by dis- 
persing his over many, may fail to accomplish 
anything. Drop after drop, continually falling, 
wears a passage through the hardest rock. The 
hasty tempest, as Carlyle points out, rushes over 
it with hideous uproar and leaves no trace behind." 

This is true. And this is why I spoke in the 
beginning of the weakness that lies in rush and 
hurry. 

I have talked this far more particularly of the 
concentration upon one great aim in life, making 
that the purpose of every effort. This habit is, 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 5 1 

however, just as necessary in the accomplishment 
of what we are apt to consider the smaller and 
unimportant things that go to make up our daily 
duties, and for this reason : We dissipate our 
forces, we scatter our energies by letting our 
thoughts fly from the thing we are doing to those 
that are to be done, impatient of hindrance or 
delay, when in reality that is of minor impor- 
tance. Purposes that are not wandered from until 
worked out, even when they seem to be trifles, 
help to bring an inflow of force that makes the 
larger aim a nearer possibility. 

Besides this steady direction of the mental 
forces, there is a spiritual concentration that is, 
beyond all, necessary to the harmonious develop- 
ment of every life. It is the holding fast to one 
purpose, of so molding the character by daily 
thought and deed that, by and by, the lower self 
shall be lost in the higher, divine self that is ever 
beckoning each individual one of us onward. It 
is the constant turning of the consciousness in- 
ward to listen to the voice which forms no part 
of the noise and rush and turmoil of the outer 
world. Thus self-centered, the care and fret, the 
toil and anxiety of this same outer world lose 
their power to disturb and to make afraid. 



52 life's gateways ; 

This is no flight of fancy. The life in the 
spirit is one to be lived daily, for we are a part 
of the Divine, which constantly awaits recogni- 
tion. And just in proportion as we make this 
recognition a steady and persistent purpose, so 
will be the growth of a spiritual force and energy 
that will vibrate through our whole being, and 
finally render what was but potential in our char- 
acter, a present reality. This concentration of 
spiritual force, this drawing nearer to a realization 
of the divine part of our nature, which makes life 
so much better worth the living, cannot come to 
flower and fruitage without effort. The same 
law holds good as with mental aims and purposes. 
" Concentration is the entire life-tendency to a 
given end." If that end be spiritual growth, it 
must be held in view every moment of the day. 
It must be the underlying thought regulating 
every action. And it is, in reality, the only thing 
worth struggling for, all other prizes in life being 
mutable and transitory. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 53 



CHAPTER VII. 

A PURPOSE IN DRUDGERY. 

"A man enjoyeth not freedom from action from the non- 
commencement of that which he hath to do, nor doth he obtain 
happiness from a total abandonment of action." — Bhagavad-Gita. 

" I HATE this drudgery." 

The words were most emphatically spoken, the 
tone one that did not admit of any doubt as to 
the feeling which lay back of the utterance of 
the speaker. 

And what was it that she so hated ? Her every- 
day duties ; the routine work which was necessary 
to be done as often as the new day came; duties 
that seemed never to lose the insistence which 
they possessed from the beginning. The comfort 
of several persons depended upon their careful 
performance ; nay, more than comfort ; their well- 
being in many ways. 

They were homely duties. No wealth, no fame, 
could come from their doing to the doer, and 
they had grown so monotonous. She felt, as 



54 life's gateways ; 

many another feels, that she was in a vise from 
which there was no possible escape. The rut 
in which she walked was growing deeper and 
deeper every day, and she saw, or believed she 
saw, all of the possibilities of a freer, broader 
life passing away from her. She could do so 
much more, she thought, could she get away from 
this drudgery, this endless round of work in 
which there was no element of freshness, nothing 
to invigorate her with a sense of newness, of 
something to be learned. 

I imagine that to all of us comes at times this 
same feeling — this weariness with what we have 
to do daily, from one year's end to the other — 
and we long to escape from our environments and 
to enter new fields which seem covered with 
pastures fair that we might harvest, if to us were 
given the opportunity. The business man hates 
figures and wants to live upon a farm ; the farmer 
would give his fertile acres gladly for the chance 
of the merchant. The mother loves her family, 
but she grows weary of the patching, the darning, 
the makeshifts, the limitations which hedge her 
days about on all sides. The wage-earner gets 
tired of the labor that knows no ending and small 
variation ; and so on to the end of the chapter. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 55 

The life-occupation of the major part of the 
world, looked at from one side, is drudgery first, 
last, and always. 

But is there not another side to the matter ? 
May, not this drudgery, from which there seems 
to be no escape, be made to yield to us something 
of lasting value ; something that shall inhere in 
us through all the lives we shall hereafter live 
here or elsewhere ? I think about this there is 
no manner of doubt. 

Character is not made by the easy, pleasant 
things that come now and then in accordance 
with our desires. We do not become strong by 
an occasional putting forth of power, but it is the 
day-by-day doing of what we have to do, through 
all discouragements, through all distaste, through 
all weariness. It is the being compelled to ac- 
complish things on time ; to do them carefully ; 
to be accurate ; to hold ourselves in check when 
dealing with others — it is these things which give 
what we may call the fundamentals of character ; 
which educate us into habits of attention, of self- 
control ; which make us patient and self-denying, 
not just for to-day or to-morrow, but ingraining 
these qualities through constant repetition of the 
according action, until they become a very part 



56 life's gateways ; 

of ourselves. They are the result of what we call 
drudgery. They are what finally make the power 
of achievement sometime and somewhere, if not 
just here and now, for it is absolutely true that 
no effort can be lost or destroyed. 

It is drudgery, that which we grow weary of 
and hate, that makes great men and women what 
they are. Charles Dickens once said, " My im- 
agination would never have served me as it has, 
but for the habit of commonplace, humble, pa- 
tient, daily, toiling, drudging attention." And 
when Mr. Edison described his repeated efforts 
to make the phonograph reproduce a sibillant 
sound, he concluded with " From eighteen to 
twenty hours a day for the last seven months I 
have worked on this single word ' specia.' I said 
into the phonograph specia, specia, specia, but 
the instrument responded pecia, pecia, pecia. It 
was enough to drive one mad. But I held firm 
and I have succeeded." That was drudgery, 
pure and simple, but it had its results in achieve- 
ment. 

It takes what we call " drudgery " to do any- 
thing well. Think of Bancroft spending twenty- 
five years in writing a history ; of Noah Webster 
taking thirty-six years to make a dictionary ; of 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. $? 

Stephenson working fifteen years upon a locomo- 
tive ; of a Watt laboring twenty years upon a 
condensing engine — all of them doing the same 
thing over and over again to the end. 

It is true, there is drudgery and drudgery, that 
is, there is the kind that is hopeless from first to 
last because it has no aim, and because no lesson 
is learned from its doing ; and there is the other 
which is regarded only as the means to an end, and 
is therefore accepted in that spirit and made the 
most of. It is the first that comes to be hope- 
lessly hated ; it is the last which leads to " pas- 
tures fair." If we do not put a meaning into our 
lives, then we might just as well not have lived. 

" How can I put a meaning into such a hum- 
drum work as mine ? " 

My friend, there is absolutely nothing in this 
world of work that cannot be made full of the 
deepest significance if so we will. There is a 
perfection to be reached in the homeliest task 
which is worth striving for, as when it is gained 
the result is so glorified that the homeliness is 
forgotten. 

In the Louvre is one of Murillo's pictures 
showing the interior of a convent kitchen, but 
the workers therein are beautiful, white-winged 



58 life's gateways ; 

angels instead of ordinary mortals. " One is put- 
ting the kettle on to boil, and one is lifting up a 
pail of water with heavenly grace, and one is at 
the kitchen dresser reaching up for plates." I 
think the artist must have meant to show how 
the commonest things of everyday life are worthy 
of the attention even of the angels, and that it is 
the spirit of the act, and not the act itself, which 
gives it character. And if it be humdrum, it is 
because we make it so in the doing. 

We may feel the weariness of what we are 
obliged to do, may believe that we are worthy of 
better work — work which is more in consonance 
with our wishes, but there is one thing certain — 
if we despise the drudgery of the present duties, 
those that lie nearest to hand, despise it so much 
that all of our effort is without heart or vitality, 
nothing better will come. We are dissipating 
our forces. We are building our characters not 
to strength, but to weakness. Aim to make the 
drudgery a factor to carry us forward, and it will 
surely, in some way, do so. 

It is said that Lincoln was once asked what he 
would do if, after three or four years, the rebellion 
were not subdued, and he replied, " Oh, there is 
no alternative but to keep pegging away." 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 59 

It is this " pegging away " that is the secret of 
all growth, all accomplishment. Nature works 
slowly. She does not hate drudgery, but she 
makes it serve her purpose. And this is what 
we must do if we are to render life successful 
upon either the material or the spiritual plane. 



6o life's gateways ; 



CHAPTER VIII. 

WHAT IS SUCCESS ? 

We see but half the causes of our deeds, 
Seeking them wholly in the outer life, 
And heedless of the encircling world 
Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us 
All germs of pure and world-wide purposes. 

— -James Russell Lowell. 

A SUCCESSFUL life ! 

We hear so much about it — we use the term so 
frequently, but we do not stop to question what 
really makes a successful life. 

What does it comprehend ? 

A large majority of people would say that the 
man who is making money is successful, and the 
greater the amount he is piling up, the greater 
his success. If he wins fame, if his name is upon 
men's lips, that, too, is counted as an evidence of 
his superiority over his fellows. To gain money 
or glory is to be credited with a larger degree of 
brain-power than are those who fail in the race 
for these things. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 6 1 

They are the suceessful people in the world's 
estimation. 

Considering the two prizes, wealth is the one 
which is thought the most desirable by the great- 
est number. Wealth gives power. Wealth per- 
mits travel, a fine house, elegant furniture, car- 
riages and horses. All of the luxuries of life it 
insures, though it does not make sure health or 
happiness. These are not the products of either 
riches or poverty. Yet money makes possible 
what are looked upon as enjoyments, the absence 
of which brings restlessness and discontent. And 
this discontent, in these days when one man has 
his millions while another has nothing, is increas- 
ing, until the finding of a remedy is one of the 
vital questions which insistently demand an an- 
swer. 

Fame comes next, and to a minority is far dearer 
than an excess of dollars. To have an admiring 
crowd " toss ready caps in air," is to have lived 
a successful life. It is to have won what is worth 
years of striving, of weary, unceasing effort. Into 
such a life the world cannot see enter any thought 
of failure. 

Back of all these material possessions, however, 
back of all of these outward results, lies the true 



62 life's gateways ; 

answer to the question of what makes success, 
and whether it has been won with the wealth or 
the fame which people prize so highly. 

Does wealth give happiness ? We all know it 
does not. It affords means for the gratification 
of the senses which are always clamoring to be 
satisfied. It brings beauty to the eye ; harmony 
to the ear ; flavor to the taste ; fragrance to the 
nostrils ; softness to the touch ; but to the inner 
self, to the soul, it mostly brings nothing. It 
is said that it is easier for a camel to go through 
the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter 
into the kingdom of heaven. This is not because 
wealth of itself is an evil, for it may be made of 
the greatest good to its possessor. It is possible 
for it to be so used as to give him a spiritual 
growth almost beyond measure, but, too often, 
there is no sense of the responsibility which it 
brings ; no thought that with every dollar or in- 
crease comes a greater duty to his fellows because 
his power is greater. 

The same is true of fame. When a name is 
gained that carries with it a wide influence, then 
the responsibility for the way in which that influ- 
ence is exerted is increased. It cannot be other- 
wise. Honor, truth, integrity — all that goes to 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 63 

make up a clean life, when made synonymous with 
a name, have a greater power over the multitude 
than when looked at abstractly. 

In reality a successful life should mean none of 
of these things exclusively. They are pleasant to 
have, and regarded as means to do greater good 
to humanity are worth striving for, but in them- 
selves, and considered only in the light of self- 
gratification, they deaden the moral sensibilities, 
and check the evolution of the soul upward. 

Our way of considering the matter is all wrong. 
Emerson says that " Every man takes care that 
his neighbor does not cheat him. But a day 
comes when he begins to take care that he does 
not cheat his neighbor. He has changed his 
market-cart into a chariot of the sun." 

Here is the truth in a nutshell. So strong has 
grown the habit of identifying success with the get- 
ting of money, that not to get it means defeat and 
failure. Into its pursuit has come a suspicion that 
all men are robbers and cheats, so that the atti- 
tude of everybody is one of watchfulness that he 
be not cheated by his neighbor. But when the 
time comes — as come it will, for a higher sense of 
the meaning of true brotherhood is awakening — 
that he takes the greater care not to cheat his 



64 life's gateways ; 

neighbor, then " a successful life " will be judged 
from a higher standpoint than it is to-day. 

I was thinking the other day of Phillips Brooks, 
and of the wonderful vitality of his influence, even 
now when years have passed since he left the body. 
I believe it grew out of his recognition of the unity 
of the race, and therefore of the interweaving of the 
individual life with that of all others, with the 
interdependence which that involves. He had the 
" widest vision and the largest love" — a vision 
which saw and felt to the utmost, man's weakness 
and man's needs, and a love that included the 
largest charity, the broadest tolerance, and an 
unceasing effort to show the ways to better and 
stronger living. Love for his fellows was his watch- 
word. " Love," he wrote to little Helen Keller, " is 
at the soul of everything. Whatever has not the 
power of loving must have a very dreary life indeed. 
We like to think that the sunshine and the winds 
and the trees are able to love in some way of their 
own, for it would make us know that they were 
happy if we knew that they could love." Simple, 
beautiful words written for a child's comprehen- 
sion, and yet showing the motive power of his 
grand, beautiful life. 

His was a fame of that better kind which does 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 65 

not die in a day. It was won, not by great deeds 
such as usually attract the attention of the world, 
but through the impression which his presence and 
actions always conveyed, that he was inseparable 
from " all that was best in his generation, its 
courage, sympathy, faith, and unquenchable hope." 
In all that he said and did there was a vitality of 
good that few, if any, ever felt like denying. 

Success, in its best sense, does not lie in the 
gaining either of much money or of the fame which 
comes only from the gratification of a vaulting am- 
bition. The reasons for a failure to obtain either 
the one or the other may lie farther back than 
lack of mental gifts or energetic effort upon the part 
of the one who fails. I have seen many a man 
who was shrewd, industrious, and honorable, and 
yet every plan seemed to go awry. At a critical 
moment, without any volition of his own, some 
complication would arise and sweep away the 
edifice that was builded with such care, and the 
unknowing world believed it some present lack of 
effort or judgment. In reality it was neither, and, 
judged from the standpoint of character, his may 
have been a successful life, for if he had won self- 
mastery he had gained what will be of value 
through all the eternities. 
5 



66 life's gateways ; 

Self-mastery means so much ! It is attained by 
so few ! 

" The bravest trophy ever man obtained 
Is that which o'er himself has gained." 

If self-control has come to be a possession of 
man or woman — for what is true of one is true of 
the other in this respect — life is a success even if 
money and fame are both lacking. The two 
latter, pleasant as they are and potent for good 
as they may be made, are only transitory, but 
the former is a part of the character which en- 
dures. " A self-controlled mind is a free mind, 
and freedom is power." Not necessarily power 
over dollars and cents, though he who is self- 
mastered is far better equipped for the race after 
material possessions than the individual who is 
a slave to his passions and ruled by his chance 
surroundings. " He cannot lead who is led." 

I would call, therefore, a successful life, that 
one in which the greatest strides have been made 
in overcoming — overcoming the difficulties which 
arise in the pathway ; overcoming that one of the 
two natures which we all possess which is ever pull- 
ing downward, determined to make the better self 
its servant ; that life which has been lived honestly, 
courageously, temperately, serenely; that life 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 67 

which has had for its aim the helping of human- 
ity. It does not matter whether one who has 
lived like this, doing what was brought to his 
hand to do with all his might, dies out of the 
physical world worth one dollar or a million, he 
has won the truest success which it is possible to 
win in this world. 



6$ life's gateways 



CHAPTER IX. 

POTENT ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 
" To the persevering mortal, the blessed immortals are swift." 

In this one sentence is held a meaning the 
potency of which, understood and acted upon, is 
beyond measurement. It will make the success, 
the prosperity, of the whole life. It lies at the 
root of every great accomplishment, whether for 
the good or the ill of humanity. It is power ; it 
is strength ; it is a key to growth, material, in- 
tellectual, spiritual. 

Everybody knows, in a way, what the word 
" perseverance " signifies, and everybody also, in 
a dim sort of manner, realizes its necessity in the 
work of life, but not one in a hundred really 
gathers in the length and breadth of the expres- 
sion, and the part which it plays in all that per- 
tains to successful accomplishment. To persevere 
means to fix the will upon some desired end, and 
then unwaveringly to walk forward towards that 
end, unheeding all discouragements, undismayed 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 69 

by difficulties, full of faith in a power of over- 
coming. It means not to allow the mind's eye 
to be swayed away from that line of sight which 
goes straight to the goal ; not to be drawn, even 
for a brief moment, from a fixed belief in ultimate, 
if not speedy, victory over all hindrances. 

" To the persevering mortal, the blessed im- 
mortals are swift." 

The individual who directs the energies of his 
thought and action towards one purpose, and 
holds them there unswervingly, gathers to 
himself the help of those unseen forces which 
are none the less real because unseen, and which 
give to him a sense of power over obstacles that 
rise to hinder his progress forward. He attracts 
the current of successful thought to meet and 
mingle with his own, thus rendering the latter 
doubly potent in its inspiration, and effective in 
its strength of accomplishment. Before such 
thought, difficulties heaped up until they overtop 
the vision go down like giant snowdrifts under 
the heat of a summer sun. 

Bonaparte once said of himself : " When my ' 
resolution is taken, all is forgotten except what 
will make it succeed." For years, as we all know, 
he never met failure, and the fixing of his will in 



JO life's gateways ; 

the one direction and holding it there was the 
potent element in his success. Irresolution par- 
alyzes effort, and weak effort is a sure guaranty 
of the non-accomplishment of anything impor- 
tant. 

All people do not possess this power of con- 
centration and perseverance, this ability to fix 
the mind unfalteringly upon one object and hold 
it there, say you ? I know it well. I know how 
the doubts and fears creep in to whisper of defeat. 
I know how, in the dark hours of the night, when 
the world is asleep, into the stillness come voices 
that taunt us with inability to perform. I know, 
too, that it is fear which makes us listen, and it is 
fear that prevents our hearing those other voices 
of inspiration and encouragement. Close the 
doors of thought against doubt and apprehension, 
and the music of the latter will swell into fuller, 
rounder tones until all else is shut away from our 
consciousness. 

This is no fairy story. It is a truth, proved 
daily, if we but open our eyes to see. The potency 
of man's will put definitely at work is but half 
understood, because his wonderful possibilities 
upon the mental plane, in its turn acting upon 
the physical, are not recognized. It is because 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. /I 

of this failure to perceive its value that I dwell 
so persistently upon the power this fixedness of 
purpose enfolds. 

Closely connected with it, and necessary to 
rapid accomplishment, is the habit of quick deci- 
sion. A moment's irresolution, with its conse- 
quent hesitation, has lost many a life, has caused 
defeat and disaster times out of mind. Most of 
us allow ourselves to be swayed one way and 
another in little things, even though in the greater 
we stand firm. 

Sometimes hesitation in trifles comes from 
indifference ; sometimes from an amiable desire 
to please ; but the result is the same. Blown 
about by the winds of indecision in unimportant 
matters, there will finally be a growth of weak- 
ness in character, and, in more momentous things, 
when much depends upon rapid action, the same 
quality will appear, paralyzing the will until 
crucial moments have passed, carrying a failure 
that may involve the saddest consequences. 

To train one's self in this direction is possible. 
Begin by deciding quickly in the little everyday 
things of life that principally affect ourselves. 
Suppose we do make mistakes — and we inevi- 
tably shall — then we can suffer the consequences, 



72 life's gateways ; 

but a step forward in the right direction has been 
taken. 

I have known people to stand for hours in 
stores, trying to decide what they want, and get- 
ting with each passing moment more and more 
hopelessly entangled in doubt. There are nine 
chances out of ten that the wrong thing is finally 
taken, through the very desperation of indecision. 
The power of quick decision would have so trained 
the faculties as to render all this doubt and per- 
plexity impossible. These are only trifling things, 
but they illustrate my meaning. Such a habit 
once formed makes life easier in every way. Dif- 
ficulties move out of the path of the individual 
who shows no hesitation about walking directly 
forward despite their presence. 

It might seem that the inflexible exertion of 
the will-power in carrying out a purpose, and 
this habit of quick decision, both of which I am 
urging as a part of success, would be sure to make 
us trample upon the rights of others ; that they 
would cause us to forget justice ; that the law of 
human brotherhood could not be made to govern 
our lives. 

This is by no means necessarily true. Every- 
where and always our aim should be to make 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 73 

thought for others, self-abnegation, the basis of 
our conduct. It is a hard thing to do, and we 
slowly progress in that direction. " As soon as 
sacrifice becomes a duty and necessity to the 
man," writes Ernest Renan, " I see no limit to 
the horizon which opens before him." Well may 
he say that, for there is no limit to the glory 
which a people thus governed may reach. 

Unselfishness, I repeat, may be made the rule 
of daily living, and yet the will-power be used for 
accomplishment, while the habit of quick decision 
governs the conduct. The purposes of a life so 
controlled and directed cannot be such as will 
war with the rights of others. To be firm, to 
be resolute, to be decided, is to be strong, and 
this strength may be used beneficently always. 
Weakness and indecision, doubt, fear, and hesita- 
tion do not make for good. Rather they bring 
suffering, not only to the individual, but to all 
with whom he is in any way connected. And so 
I repeat to you with all earnestness, those preg- 
nant words with which I began : 

" To the persevering mortal, the blessed immortals are swift." 

Bearing this thought with us as we move on- 
ward, and success in all ways is far more likely to 
be the guerdon of our efforts. 



74 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 



CHAPTER X. 

A SAVING POWER. 

"The fruit of labors, in the lives to come, 
Is threefold for all men, — desirable 
And undesirable, and mixed of both ; 
But no fruit is at all where no work was." 

. A GREAT truth lies in these four lines, espe- 
cially in the last one. We are all apt to look at 
persons, who, apparently, have not a great deal to 
do, with a sort of envy, as if they are the chosen 
ones of earth, upon whom the golden sun of pros- 
perity is pouring its fervid rays, leaving us in the 
cold and shadow, compelled to use our every 
energy to keep moderately warm and comfort- 
able. We do not exactly see why the difference, 
and would gladly be relieved of all necessity for 
work, nay, even of the opportunity, if in no other 
way can we gain longed-for leisure. 

I think that is a great mistake. 

Work is really a saviour. The life that holds in 
it no great purpose for which effort is needed, 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 75 

neither any necessity for exertion, is full of bar- 
renness. It may look flowery and fascinating 
when viewed from afar, and with every faculty 
of the mind, every portion of the body of the 
onlooker weighed down with weariness, but in 
reality, there are no more wretched people in 
existence than these envied do-nothings. I re- 
member well, when, in my childhood, a fit of 
naughtiness seized me — as it often did, and indeed 
has not failed to do sometimes in these latter days 
— and I was not allowed to help in the doing of 
a piece of work that had fallen to the lot of my 
sisters and myself to accomplish by a given hour, 
that the time was a torture in its passage, for I 
was obliged to sit in a chair with folded hands, 
and rest while the others worked. And what 
ugly things I thought of, and what mischief I 
would have done had not a stronger will than 
mine held me quiet in my place! 

The experience of maturity is the same in kind 
as that of the child. If the head and hands be 
not employed, the voice of tempters becomes very 
loud and insistent. Mostly its seductions are 
yielded to, and the old, old story, full of pathos, 
crowded with misery, is told again. Occupation 
would have left no opportunity for such betrayal 



y6 life's gateways ; 

of the higher impulses ; for the dragging in the 
dust of what is best in human nature. 

Of course there is work and work. It is not 
always possible to choose what appeals to our 
belief in our power of accomplishment. The 
homely things of every day's " must-be-dones " 
often repel and weary, checking our ambitions 
with a bitter sense of being compelled to spend 
energy upon what is not worthy our effort, be- 
cause we believe so much greater accomplish- 
ment for us is possible. And still in the doing 
of these things wisely and well, in the patience 
and courage which they demand day by day, 
there may be a mental and spiritual growth that 
is far beyond what is more congenial. Yet be- 
cause we so often fail under great trials of forti- 
tude, because the pin-pricks of life play so large a 
part in the making of character, I would not ad- 
vise any one to purposely seek a labor, the doing 
of which is hateful. 

Hard work always tells. Of course it depends 
upon the honesty of purpose back of it as to 
whether good or bad is accomplished, but it never 
fails to have its effect, and if the will is strongly in- 
fused in the effort, that is, if the work isnot coerced, 
the results will usually be in the direction desired. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. // 

We are too apt to be discouraged if success 
does not materialize immediately. There is 
where we often make our great mistakes. We 
forget that there is a world of thought around us 
in which we are building, but into which we can- 
not see with our physical eyes. Yet here live 
and work the mental children to which we give 
birth, and by and by their labor makes itself 
visible. 

Work for the work's sake. 

Do not stop always to ask how much or how 
little personal benefit is coming to you. The 
" fruit desirable " of which the poet sings, is for 
labor done for other than self-advancement. It is 
that entered into, not because it will pay in fame, 
in money, in position, but that it will help to 
carry forward some movement for the betterment 
of humanity. Something of this kind comes in 
the way of each individual, and the fruit is, indeed, 
worth the labor. 

Aside from this, however, the doing of every- 
day tasks in the spirit that throws into it the best 
thought and the best effort of which we are 
capable, no matter how homely the work may be, 
is the one to encourage, for it brings the " fruit 
desirable " in all ways. No one has a right to 



78 life's gateways ; 

accept work to do for others, and think only of the 
easiest way of getting through it to receive the re- 
turns. " It is not," writes Lilian Whiting, " what 
one can get out of a work, but what he may put 
in, that is the test of success." And this is as true 
in a material sense as in the spiritual. It is a very 
shortsighted man or woman who gauges effort in 
any position by the exact dollar-and-dime meas- 
ure. The fruit is most undesirable in all ways. 
Not only is spiritual growth, which is of the 
greater importance, hindered, but the vitality of 
the mental powers is impaired and progress ren- 
dered impossible. If you look around you with 
observant eyes, this truth will become very plain. 
The worker who shirks all that he may without 
losing the place to work, is the one who is at a 
standstill. Afraid that, perchance, he may do 
something for nothing, he effectually bars him- 
self from any advancement that depends upon 
his own merits. If the young were always made 
to understand this fact, there would be less eye- 
service in the labor-field, and humanity would be 
the gainer. 

I know well that there is a " labor which en- 
slaves the laborer " ; that there are many whose 
mental and physical being is so overtasked that 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. Jg 

life does not seem worth the having. To change 
such conditions — conditions that lead to misery 
and demoralization — is the problem with which 
the next century has to grapple. There are 
many more who dwell upon intermediate ground, 
to whom the real significance of work is yet un- 
known. They do not perceive that it is the op- 
portunity for the upbuilding of the human being 
— the strengthening of the moral and mental 
nature of the individual. 

To us all come seasons of weariness, when our 
daily tasks are monotonous and well-nigh unen- 
durable. It is a mood of mind which we must 
resist. The duty of the hour, however unat- 
tractive it may be, is the one which, because it is 
duty, we must vitalize with our best efforts, so 
far as it is needed. There can be no question of 
the return of " fruits desirable " if this is done. 
It may not be to-day or to-morrow that we rec- 
ognize them, but they are as sure as the shining 
of the sun in the clear noonday sky. 
" There is a saving power in work." 
I repeat it — let no one mourn if necessity com- 
pels an exertion of the powers even though it 
may not be exactly in the line of his desires. 
We are all apt to look out into the world and 



80 life's gateways ; 

think that the lot of some other is preferable to 
our own, that if we could choose some other line 
of labor we should be better satisfied. The truth 
is we might fail utterly elsewhere. The need is 
to put a cheerful spirit into our work, whatever 
it may be, and then it will either be glorified in 
our sight, or the doors will open to something 
better. The saving power is always there, but 
how far it shall operate in the uplifting of our 
lives rests with ourselves. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 8 1 



CHAPTER XL 

DO HONEST WORK. 

(i So many things would be impossible to us were we more 
aware of God ; that is, more conscious of our being co-workers 
with Infinite Law and Infinite Love." — Letters from an Unknown 
Friend. 

Two men were talking. 

" Oh, that is good enough ! It looks just as 
well as if you did it the other way, and takes less 
time. Who is going to know the difference ? " 

" I know it myself," replied the other quietly, 
" and that is enough. It would not last any time." 

" Then we should have another job," chuckled 
the first. " What is the use of being so particu- 
lar? Nobody is nowadays, and nobody will thank 
you." 

" Can't help that," was the answer; " I believe 

in honest work, and if I didn't do it, I'd feel 

ashamed of myself. Why, man, it is just the 

same as stealing to take a job, slight it, and then 

get the same pay as if it was done right. No, 
6 



82 life's gateways ; 

sir. I want to respect myself, whether anybody 
else does or not.". 

" Well," replied his companion, " all I've got 
to say is you are a fool. The world don't wag 
that way, and you'll get left if you carry out a 
plan of that kind. Get the most money for the 
least work is my rule, and I make money, twice 
as much as you do." 

" That may be," said the other, resolutely ; 
" and you can go on making it, while I do good 
jobs and get less pay, perhaps ; but I'll like my- 
self better, and that's more important to me than 
the money." 

So they parted, and each went his way. Each 
had voiced the sentiment, the one of a great 
majority, the other of a small minority of people 
engaged in the struggle for the good things of 
life. To those who are out in the world, the fact 
is not a disputed one, that, consciously or un- 
consciously, the majority make their rule of ac- 
tion in accord with the man who believed in the 
most money for the least work. " Every one else 
does the same thing, and I am no better than my 
fellows," is the spoken, or unspoken but felt, 
excuse for slighting work, which should be done 
upon honor always, and especially when the em- 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 83 

ployer is unable to know, until later events tell 
him, that it is not what he expected. The feel- 
ing unfortunately seems to rule that the disgrace 
in getting the better of another, either in work 
or in a money way, lies in being found out rather 
than in the deed itself. That a man or woman 
who, knowingly, does a poor job when receiving 
pay for a good one, is as much a thief as if ab- 
stracting money from another's pocket-book, is 
a truth that does not appear to strike home in 
man)' cases. This carelessness, this disregard for 
the rights of others grows out of the failure to 
recognize the law of human brotherhood ; and 
also a failure to understand clearly that the one 
who thus refuses to do his duty, really hurts 
himself, shadows his own soul, in a way that no 
money gained for the moment can at all com- 
pensate for. 

In thinking about this carelessness often ex- 
hibited where there seems no real intention of 
doing wrong, I have come to believe that it has 
grown partly from the way we have of making 
tilings do. Instead of always insisting upon the 
best and highest accomplishment of which one is 
capable, most of us accept the mediocre both in 
ourselves and others, because it is too much 



84 life's gateways ; 

trouble to do anything else. When we do it in 
ourselves, we are weakening our own character ; 
when we allow it in others simply because it is 
easier, we are helping them to be dishonest, for 
this is what it comes to finally. 

There is a great lack of a feeling of responsi- 
bility on the part of both employer and employed, 
but at present I am speaking principally of the 
latter. This lack is not always in proportion to 
ignorance, for intelligent service is often that 
of the eye, if there is no danger of a reaction 
upon the server, and not a thing of the conscience. 

The individual, whatever may be his place in 
the world, who does as little as possible in return 
for what he is to receive, makes a great mistake. 
In his essay upon Worship, Emerson says : " The 
man whose eyes are nailed, not on the nature of 
his act, but on the wages, whether it be money, or 
office, or fame, is almost equally low." It can- 
not be otherwise, because such a man simply 
expresses what he really lacks of integrity by this 
devotion to what he is to get, without regard to 
the quality of the labor performed. 

The highest success never comes from this kind 
of service, and the sooner young people get rid 
of that idea, when they have it, the better for 



OK, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 85 

their future. When parents set the example of 
carelessness with regard to their own duties before 
their children, they are doing a harm which is 
almost incalculable. The true teaching is that 
whatever comes to any one to do, should be done 
in the spirit of determination to do it well, whether 
or not the returns are in proportion to the effort 
demanded. When it is otherwise, when the 
energy put forth is measured by the immediate 
good which is expected to be gained, it is as cer- 
tain as anything can be that the life governed by 
this rule will be a failure. This withdrawal of 
the best of one's self from the work to be done is 
sure to bring final disaster. The men who have 
made the most money, the artists who have won 
the greatest fame, the writers who have gained 
the world's ear, never " made things do," in the 
beginning of their career. They were not satis- 
fied with just doing without regard to the quality 
of their work, even though that work were done 
for others and not half paid for. They recognized 
the fact that the effect upon themselves of care- 
less accomplishment was far more harmful for their 
future than any possible present material good 
to be derived from such action. 

W T hen I hear a young man or a young girl, 



86 life's gateways ; 

whatever their work or position, say : " I am not 
going to worry myself to do that any better till I 
am better paid," the fact is at once borne in upon 
me that their ideals in life are very low, and that 
they will live and act accordingly. The man who 
was sure he would " like himself better " for doing 
honest work was the one who might be trusted 
to be true to the best he knew under all circum- 
stances, and his thought of the best would become 
constantly higher. For we never stand still. 
Either we grow better or worse, and if we hold 
fast to the plane of selfishness it will be, it must 
be, worse. 

Let, then, the aim of each and every one of us 
be to do honest work whatever the work may be, 
remembering always that any present material 
gain is, in no possible way, commensurate with 
the loss to the character which intentional dis- 
honesty in this respect will bring. 

Then another thing. The object that is of the 
most worth must be obtained at the greatest cost. 
A high ideal, whether for material or spiritual 
good, can only be approached by continuous 
struggle. Great accomplishments may seem to 
the looker-on to have been easily reached, but 
outside of rare instances there are always difficult 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 8/ 

steps to be taken, even if they are hidden from 
sight. I fully understand that no one can be 
happy who feels that he is not putting to good 
use whatever ability in any direction he believes 
himself to possess. Herbert Spencer says what 
is true, that every creature is happy when he is 
fully using his powers. Not that anybody in one 
short life reaches the limits of his possibilities, 
because powers of which he is not conscious are 
surely his, but if he feels that he is giving ex- 
pression to the best that is within him on the 
plane where he is working, there is a fullness of 
satisfaction that nothing else brings. It is true, 
if fame, or money, or pleasure be the sole object, 
the satisfaction is not lasting. The unhappiest 
person I ever knew was one who seemed to have 
attained everything in a material way that a 
human being could desire. That was because the 
whole effort had been selfish from the beginning. 
There was no greater aim than to succeed for 
what success was to bring him in a personal way. 
There was no thought of humanity's needs, no 
aspiration to be humanity's helper. 

The sum and substance of the matter is this: 
The purpose of our lives is growth in character, 
and every trial that comes to us is simply an 



88 life's gateways ; 

instrument put into our hands with which to work 
our way onwards. We may turn it upon our- 
selves to our own undoing, or we may make it 
potent for a good which, in its ultimate, cannot 
be measured. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 89 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE RIGHT ATTITUDE. 

" All things are good. To use aright 
Is the true secret of the master's might; 
And he who with sincerity 

Still follows well the light within 
Shall make and shape the greater light 
For which we wait. The grander day 

It is for you to usher in." 

I WISH that I could impress upon all youngpeople 
just starting out in life, boys as well as girls, that 
there are two ways of doing work, the one bring- 
ing almost certain success, the other almost as 
equally certain failure. I think it was Tennyson 
who wrote : 

" Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power." 

Too many start in the pathway that leads up- 
ward" or forward with small idea of all that is in- 
volved in the attitude that is taken towards labor. 
They do not seem to understand that its mean- 



go LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

ing lies far deeper than mere accomplishment, 
that it is the opportunity offered for the cultiva- 
tion of the qualities which do indeed lead to 
" sovereign power." The poet would have the 
worker revere self, because, in so doing, he makes 
his life morally clean and white. None who 
realize that they are indeed made in the image of 
their Creator would wish or dare to defile them- 
selves with what belongs only to the life of the 
animal. He demands self-knowledge because 
thus only will the boy or girl, the man or woman, 
realize in any degree their weakness and, at the 
same time, their strength ; they learn thus the 
possibilities of their mental and spiritual being, 
and in what way they may individually reach the 
heights, or how they may be debased to the 
depths, both in the present and in the future. 
Self-control the worker must have, in order that 
he may see clearly and hold himself well in hand 
whatever the circumstances which may arise to 
arouse him into fear or indignation. 

These qualities must be possessed in order that 
labor in any direction may bring the highest re- 
sults. Of course, they are obtained only by effort, 
that effort directed to a clear perception of 
necessity. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 91 

The work itself, however, must be entered into 
in the right way. And there is where so many- 
fail. Labor is too often looked upon as one of 
the disagreeables of life to be submitted to be- 
cause inevitable, when, in reality, whether a 
" must-be " or not, it is a blessing. It is a phys- 
ical and a mental stimulus, a means of growth, a 
hindrance to that satiety with life's pleasures that 
opens the door to temptation in order to secure 
variety. Of course I know well that there may 
be labor prolonged to exhaustion, and even to 
demoralization, for anything which goes beyond 
the individual power benumbs the brain and dwarfs 
the faculties. My words do not apply to an ex- 
cess of labor, but only to the industrial efforts 
which the young ordinarily seek to put forth, 
and by which they hope to win what they con- 
sider the prizes of life. 

Somewhere I saw these lines : 

" Some sow the seed, then sit and wait 
For suns to shine and rains to fall, 

And mourn the harvest comes so late, 
And fear it will not come at all. 

" Some, single-minded, still work on, 

Nor stop to understand ; 
The rose-bloom of success is won, 

And harvests ripen at their hand." 



92 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

Herein is contained another bit of philosophy 
which those who are beginning their life-work 
would do well to take to heart. The highest success 
will never come to spasmodic effort, or to that 
in which the element of doubt and fear enters 
largely. Simply sowing the seed, making a begin- 
ning, is not enough. It is the conscientious, con- 
tinued doing of the work for the work's own sake 
that finally brings the reward. The ambition 
may not be of the highest quality, but there must 
be enough pleasure in the exercise of the skill 
demanded to make the results satisfactory, in 
order to cause prolonged effort. " Some single- 
minded still work on, nor stop to ask or under- 
stand." The best work is done under this condi- 
tion, for, you see, it is then *' for the work's sake," 
with much of the element of self left out during 
its doing. 

And this brings me to that other thought, 
which is, that we largely make or unmake our own 
lives ; that in a great measure, it rests with our- 
selves what we shall do or be in the world. I do 
not cast out of the reckoning the difference in 
natural endowments, but, after all, they have 
much less of a determining influence than we are 
apt to imagine. The most potent factor is our 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 93 

own attitude of mind. See nothing save success 
following our efforts ; admit no possibility of 
failure ; draw to ourselves the magnetism of hope; 
make our opportunities, rather than await them — 
do this, and we go far toward winning our wishes. 

It is especially desirable that the young form 
early this habit of thought, and then by the time 
middle age is reached it has become fixed and 
potent. It is, however, well for everybody, no 
matter at what time of life, to cultivate the think- 
ing of prosperity to himself. Whether we recog- 
nize the truth or not, it is sure that all things 
work from within outwards. 

It has been well said that " nothing of any im- 
portance is ever wrought without until it is first 
wrought within." And it is " wrought within" 
by the power of thought. In the quiet hours of 
meditation it is shaped into beauty and symmetry 
ready for the hour of action which is to transform 
it into reality. Give ten minutes each day, if no 
more, to this silent communion with the inner 
self, and the effect it has upon the outer life and 
action will soon be readily perceptible. 

Another great element in the success of any 
undertaking is the enthusiasm that is put into it 
by those who are endeavoring to carry it forward. 



94 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

It does not matter what the object is, whether 
for the benefit of others or for one's self, so far as 
the effect of this mood of mind is concerned, for 
anything that will produce enthusiasm will pro- 
duce also that exhilaration that nerves all effort 
to accomplishment. 

Of course I hold always that it is the unselfish 
labor, that which is done for others without 
thought of personal advantage, which brings the 
loftiest enthusiasm, and, therefore, the best results. 
And yet it is wholly true that a business or pro- 
fession entered into as an occupation, and mean- 
ing the supplying of the daily needs of life, will 
not be really successful unless a spirit is put into 
the labor that is apart from the mental or phys- 
ical action. From the baking of a loaf of bread 
for the family to the law-making of a statesman 
for a nation, there must enter in this vivifying 
element that electrifies and makes potent every 
effort. Just as soon as this dies away, then, no 
matter what success has been attained in the past, 
a season of dry rot sets in, and the end is death 
to further accomplishment. 

This enthusiasm lies oftener within our own 
power, is more of our own making, than we are 
willing to admit. It frequently is a thing of 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 95 

growth out of absolute indifference. Necessity, 
perhaps, demands an effort to be put forth, and 
the fruit of that effort arouses a subtle sense of 
power, and a desire to go further and accomplish 
more. It may, on the other hand, be something 
which, from the beginning, enlisted our sympa- 
thies, provoked our courage, determined our labors, 
until it entered the very fiber of our natures. 
Under such conditions there could be no such 
thing as failure. 

Enthusiasm is potent everywhere, and is often, 
as I said before, a child of our own cherishing. 
We may put it into our daily life, into the work 
that wearies with repetition, and it acquires a new 
meaning. " Even washing the dishes has taken 
on new and pleasant features," said a bright-eyed 
woman to me one day, *' since I resolved to culti- 
vate a pleasant interest in the occupation, and do 
not look upon it as drudgery pure and simple." 
If this spirit be carried through all the purposes 
of her life, it will, in many things, develop into 
the enthusiasm that conquers. 

It is this most potent factor that is present in all 
accomplishment which is of value. Does a speaker 
thrill you with the magic of an eloquence that 
seems to carry you out of your ordinary self, and 



96 life's gateways ; 

sometimes to lead your very convictions captive? 
Be assured that it is because the speech is vital- 
ized with the enthusiasm of an earnest belief 
which knows no doubt or hesitation. It enters 
into every invention, every masterpiece of paint- 
ing or sculpture, every great poem, essay, or novel 
that holds the world breathless with admiration. 

And it is a spiritual power. It has its birth 
among the higher potencies. You never find 
true enthusiasm in those people who are always 
groveling in the dirt at the feet of the senses. 
In its very nature it is uplifting. I do not mean 
by that, that anybody who is enthusiastic is nec- 
essarily of a highly spiritual nature, but that the 
ability to rise into a condition which makes a 
possibility clothed in such beauty as to render 
work for it a pleasure, shows that the individual 
has passed beyond the sensual and sensuous con- 
dition which is all selfish, and has developed a 
capacity for the better things. 

Do not be afraid of an enthusiasm. Never 
mind what people say to you in this regard. 
Let them call you an enthusiast with an inflec- 
tion of pity or half-contempt in the voice. If a 
thing seems to you worth working for at all, if it 
appears to you of moment enough to challenge 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 97 

any effort, then put into what you do all the en- 
thusiasm of which you are capable, uncaring for 
adverse criticism. He laughs best who laughs- 
last. It is never the half-hearted, the coldly crit- 
ical, the doubting and fearing that accomplish 
the most. 

No, do not, I repeat, be afraid of a real enthu- 
siasm. It will steady the heart and strengthen 
the will ; it will give force to the thought and 
nerve the hand until what was only a possibility 
becomes a reality. If you believe anything is 
good, is true, is desirable, then work for it, wisely 
but faithfully. Put the very best of yourself in 
your effort, and final victory will be yours. 
7 



98 life's gateways ; 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE DAYS OF SMALL THINGS. 

" I feel that I need to keep in mind the true value of things. 
What is worth so much to me as serenity of spirit ? How many 
things about which I grow disquieted will seem of little value to- 
morrow even, and surely I would not lay my tranquillity on the 
altar of false gods." — Letters from an Unknown Friend. 

The day of small things ! 

I sometimes think there is no other kind of day 
for the most of us, so ruled are we by what, at 
best, are but trifles. It is true, and pity 'tis, 'tis 
true, that the endurance of petty vexations, the 
pin-pricks of each day, so to speak, often demand 
greater strength than some overwhelming mis- 
fortune, but our effort should be to accquire that 
power over one's self which will prevent the 
discord and inharmony within, that wear us out 
physically and mentally. Not but what we call 
small, commonplace duties are to be done with 
the same devotion to their right accomplishment 
as the greater ones, but there is no need for dwell- 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 99 

ing in them, for worrying over them, for letting 
insignificant failures and disappointments vex and 
worry to such a degree that life itself appears a 
burden too heavy to carry. 

This letting the small things have so large a 
control over our lives is almost universal. Those 
of you who have ever read that amusing book, 
" The Swamp Angel," written by Prentice Mul- 
ford, a book, by the way, that contains much 
shrewd philosophy, may recall what he says in this 
direction. He had gone down into the Jersey 
wilderness and built him a house in order to be 
free from the world, and yet its cares invaded, 
conquered, and held him captive even there. 

"Despite all I can do," he writes, " the cares of 
the world will invade the house of refuge I have 
built for myself in this Jersey swamp, of which a 
very large portion are not worth being cares at 
all. They run thus : Whether I shall have my 
leaky roof covered with tin, or cover it myself 
with tarred paper or oil-cloth ; whether I shall 
put up some more shelves in a certain corner, for 
what purpose I don't exactly know ; whether I 
had better for next summer buy the $7.50 hand- 
some nickel-plated stove or a common tin one, or 
no oil stove at all ; whether I shall buy a hoe or 



IOO life's gateways ; 

borrow one of my neighbor ; whether I shall plant 
corn or potatoes ; who will care for my chickens 
when I go to Boston ; whether I shall have toast 
for breakfast, or egg and toast ; whether, in a 
thousand things of everyday thought, which I am, 
indeed, ashamed to tell anybody else, I shall or 
shall not, or might or might not, — all these 
thoughts, plans, speculations, wishes, anxieties, 
whims, notions, great and small, needless or 
necessary, often come in a crowd and mob my 
brain, within the space of half an hour, while I 
am trudging from the swamp to the station, 
while Deity is doing his best to amuse me by the 
splendors of a sunrise." 

Then he goes on to tell how he coquets with 
these things; how instead of deciding then and 
there about matters of such small moment, he 
deals out indecisions, saying to himself, " I'll wait 
awhile and see," thus giving a chance for them to 
enter in and again occupy his mind to the exclu- 
sion of what would be a benefit and a pleasure if 
allowed a hearing. 

There is no doubt but the Bible story of Mary 
and Martha had a bearing upon just this thing, 
though I have always felt that Martha has not, 
perhaps, received her just dues during these eight- 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. IOI 

een hundred years. Like ourselves, she was 
" cumbered with much serving," and could not 
see how her anxious absorption in household 
cares was hindering her soul's growth, by prevent- 
ing her from hearing the words of her Lord, to 
which Mary was listening — words that were of 
such infinite importance as to transcend every 
other consideration. Martha utterly failed to 
appreciate this. Her mind was filled with anxiety 
as to the passing duties of the hour, and she was 
in no condition to gather the knowledge which 
would grow into a higher wisdom, and place life 
upon a broader basis. 

Sometimes it seems to me as if we act just as a 
man would who sits down to a table loaded with 
good things, feeling that desire and duty, one or 
both, demand that he eat of everything before 
him and that within a given time. , He takes a 
little of this, more of that, some of the other; 
and so hastily on through the list, deriving but a 
limited enjoyment from anything, and overtaxing 
his digestive powers so that weakness rather than 
vigor will be the result. He really is not obliged 
to eat of all that is before him. Duty simply 
demands that he shall take what is pleasant and 
needful for keeping the vital processes of the 



102 LIFES GATEWAYS; 

body in harmonious action. All of the rest is not 
only unnecessary and superfluous, but absolutely 
harmful. 

Do you see what I mean ? It is a homely illus- 
tration, but it answers my purpose, which is to 
show this : We make our lives complex by en- 
deavoring to force into them so much that is 
really trivial and needless as to shut out the op- 
portunities for the real things, the true things, 
that make for the soul's growth into the finer 
realities belonging to the eternities. And it is 
these which are all-important, and yet it is just 
these which we put away in our overmuch care 
about eating, drinking, dressing, and working, 
wearying body and brain with what is of no per- 
manent value. 

It is not that we are to fix our eyes upon the 
stars and forget that our feet are yet upon the 
earth. We may not pass by the present duty, 
however homely it be, but do it conscientiously 
when the moment comes, and then let it go. It 
is this getting tangled up in little affairs, this 
making a needless ado over trifles, that pre- 
vents us from seeing how many really beautiful 
things there are in the world about us. I do not 
refer to the great sorrows that sweep down 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 103 

upon us to try our strength and help the soul to 
grow. 

The other day I went down town to attend to 
some necessary shopping. It was towards the 
close of the afternoon, but there was sufficient 
time and more to accomplish all that I had to do. 
In some way the demon of hurry and unrest had 
entered into me, and my condition of mind af- 
fected my companion, so away we went as if all 
the furies were in our wake prodding us on. We 
bought what we did not want, and did not buy 
what we really needed, and finally wound up by 
rushing frantically after a street car, tumbling in, 
breathless and exhausted, when the next one five 
minutes after would have answered the purpose 
every whit as well. There was a magnificent 
sunset, but we caught only a fleeting glimpse of 
its glory ; the stars were peeping out one by one, 
but there was no moment of pause to wonder at 
their beauty and their mystery. And if we had 
only remembered realities, there was not the 
least need of all this hurry. Yet most of us are 
doing the same thing every day of our lives, thus 
putting out of our reach the substance of what 
is most to be desired. The material life should 
be lived at its best in order to fulfill its purpose, 



104 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

and that best may be made to so interweave with 
the spiritual life which is to endure, as to make 
the shining of the spirit visible in every act. It 
cannot be done, however, by hurry and worry 
over the " things of a day." It cannot be done 
by crowding every waking hour to the brim with 
duties, either pleasurable or painful, leaving no 
time for communion with Nature or with the 
wiser Divine Self that is always awaiting recogni- 
tion. 

I think there is a way in which earnest women 
often deceive themselves, and it is a most subtle 
form of self-deception. It is in undertaking to 
do more than they have time and strength for, 
first in charity and church work, this being looked 
upon as a duty to humanity ; then in belonging 
to literary clubs and reading circles, considered 
necessary for improvement. Little is gained and 
much is lost by overdoing in such matters. There 
are all kinds of organizations for helping those who 
need help, each one excellent in its own way, but 
the individual who attempts to do good work in 
more than one or two, unless the whole life is 
given up to it, makes a great mistake. Yet it is 
so made constantly, and added to by an addi- 
tional effort in literary clubs, by lessons in art, 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. IO$ 

and other things that demand both physical and 
mental exertion. It is no wonder that the con- 
viction is abroad, especially among women, that 
life has become a complex thing, but it is the 
people themselves who make it so. 

The best of which we are capable can only be 
done within limitations. Going outside of these, 
spreading ourselves over a larger field than we 
can cover, and the consequence is failure in the 
highest accomplishment, while there is always a 
consciousness of hurry and confusion, a feeling 
of being constantly pushed beyond our limit of 
strength. 

In the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the Eastern books 
of wisdom, it is said that he " who is of equal 
mind in pain or pleasure, self-centered, to whom 
a lump of earth, a stone, or gold are as one ; who 
is of equal mind with those who love or dislike ; 
constant, the same whether blamed or praised," 
— such an one has surmounted the pains and diffi- 
culties of life. Of course this means, even in its 
lighter sense, that we are all to aim to reach a 
tranquillity that will hold us above petty cares 
and worries, since they weaken our powers and 
prevent the soul's growth into that larger strength 
that will make us the rulers over circumstances, 



106 LIFE'S GATEWAYS; 

instead of their being their slaves. That we can 
at once bound to this condition is, I know, im- 
possible, but the pathway thither is open, and we 
may at will enter in. If we fight the good fight 
every day and every hour, we shall some time ap- 
proach the condition described by Walt Whitman 
thus : 

" I know that I am deathless. 
I know that this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's 

compass ; 
And whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten thousand or 

ten million years, 
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can 

wait." 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. IO/ 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE GREAT PROCESSION. 

The fever for possession, of money, of another's affections, 
thought, time, and exterior life, — this it is which begets a frenzy 
and destroys poise, harmony, temperate thought and feeling." — 
Lessons of the Day. 

Move on. 

This is the spirit of the age, the voice that, 
without articulation, speaks in tones so loud as 
to be deafening to those who are world-weary, 
whose strength is exhausted, and whose ambition 
is laid low. 

Move on. 

No matter how much you may have done for 
humanity, individually or collectively ; no matter 
if you have made the hearts of thousands to sing 
for joy ; no matter if you have lifted burdens 
from the shoulders of the weary when the weight 
has threatened to crush and destroy ; no matter 
how exhausted and breathless you may be, there 



108 LIFE'S GATEWAYS ; 

is no pause for rest possible, for the Juggernaut 
of competition is rolling toward you, and you must 
up and onward. 

Move on. 

It is in the air everywhere. Nothing stands 
still ; nothing may, for the whole tendency is for- 
ward. Not always to good. If it were, then 
we might well rejoice and be glad. Alas, no ! 
Selfish greed is too often the key to the move- 
ment, the forcing power that drives and drives 
and never stops. 

Move on. 

Crossing the track of the street railway with 
hasty step before an advancing car the other day, 
I could not but think how the age was reflected 
at that moment. Along the street till it turned 
from my view were electric cars, one after another 
moving forward, coming with irresistible force. 
Men's hands were upon the brakes, it is true, but 
their whole thought was to rush each car through 
its course as rapidly as possible. Let a single 
obstacle stand in their pathway, and destruction 
was inevitable. To the unhappy one who might 
miss his footing through mistake or weakness, 
these cars, propelled by the chained lightning, 
would be monsters without ruth, crushing, grind- 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. IO9 

ing, destroying. So with the unfortunate who 
does not keep up with the rushing tide whose 
deafening roar is ever in our ears bidding us on- 
ward. 

Move on. 

We may not pause. Whatever we think of 
doing must be done to-day. To-morrow will be 
too late. Some other hand will have planted the 
roses and plucked the blossoms, leaving us not 
even their fragrance, The brilliant invention, the 
business enterprise, the artistic creation must leap, 
fully armed and equipped from your brain, or 
another will seize it and clothing it in different 
vestments, hold it in ownership. We see in- 
stances of this every day, and men are beginning 
to so well understand this result, that they try 
to keep their expected ventures secret until fully 
ripe for action. 

Move on. 

Only among the granite hills, the towering 
mountains, far away from the city's turmoil, 
may we find surcease from this restless striving. 
Where the trees whisper together beneath sunny 
skies ; where the sunshine kisses into brightness 
the meadow's green ; where the flowers bud, 
blossom, and bear fruit undisturbed in their cov- 



IIO LIFE S GATEWAYS; 

erts, where selfishness is not because man is not ; 
— there only is pause. 

Move on. 

Hurry is in the air. It is everywhere. The 
currents of hurrying thought that are sent forth 
unceasingly must have their reflex action. We 
feel it. Everybody feels it. It is imprinted upon 
the faces of nine-tenths of the people whom we 
meet. 

If only this forward rush were to broader and 
more generous life ; if it were animated by love 
of each for the other ; if it were a growth toward 
better things for humanity, and not for the car- 
rying out of individual purposes, then it could be 
watched with rejoicing, for the millennium would 
soon be reached. 

Writing of this and thinking of the necessity of 
urging the cultivation of a restful spirit, I chanced 
upon an article by Katherine Hilyard in The 
Path, upon this subject, and the necessity of 
greater repose. She says : " Nor does the quie- 
tude necessarily involve idleness. Without haste 
but also without rest is the watchword of the 
stars, and the elimination of hurry does not imply 
inactivity. It is always better to do three things 
well than to do thirty things badly, and if we wish 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. I I I 

to purge our lives of the element of hurry, we 
must take as our rule two golden maxims : Never 
to try to do more in a day than we can do well ; 
and when sure we can accomplish a thing in half 
an hour, always to allow ourselves forty minutes. 
Then we are able to move serenely through the 
bustle of life, and although each day we seem to 
have accomplished little, and to have relinquished 
very much, at the end of many days we shall find 
that on the whole we have done more and done 
it better than when we grasped with both hands 
at the hedge of flowers, and tore away few blos- 
soms and many thistles." 

There is nothing truer than this. We not only 
accomplish less by this hurry, but we are making 
pain and unrest and dissatisfaction possible for the 
future. We must remember that we are spending 
force and thought in every movement of our bodies, 
and when this movement is made with needless 
haste or with impatience, there is so much force 
gone out of us that must be replaced or it will be 
the worse for us in time to come. 

Repose, then, is what the whole people of the 
United States needs to cultivate ; repose of mind, 
repose of body. Of course this almost resistless 
energy, this apparently tireless activity, brings 



112 LIFE S GATEWAYS; 

great accomplishments, but such reckless expendi- 
ture of force must be paid for, and it is, in shat- 
tered health, weakened, nervous, shortened lives ; 
and the cause few recognize. 

The nation will be cured of this hurrying mood 
only as individuals cure themselves, and then help 
by sending out reposeful thoughts to counteract 
those of the opposite kind. Men and women both 
need to learn the lesson, and it is just as vital in 
the home as" in the counting-room or place of 
business. 

Prentice Mulford said : " It is the half-frantic 
dusting of corners, the spasmodic sweeping, the 
impatient snatching or pushing aside of obstacles 
in the room, the hurrying and skurrying upstairs 
and down cellar that aids to exhaust the force of 
so many women. It is not that the acts or work 
exhausts. It is the mental condition they are con- 
tinually in, that makes so many old and haggard 
at forty." 

We fill our lives with so many things. We are 
sure we cannot help doing them. They are duties 
that bind us to performance. Perhaps, by and 
by — we are always looking forward, you know 
— they will drop away from us, and we shall find 
leisure and repose. They never do thus drop 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 113 

away. The repose must be of our own making. 
It is to be held in our thoughts while we are work- 
ing, walking, talking. Then, perhaps, we shall be 
able to walk with head erect, upon unhurrying 
feet, with eyes open to see all the beautiful world 
around us. And what we do will contain no 

element of unrest in its doing. 
8 



114 LIFE'S GATEWAYS; 



CHAPTER XV. 

DO NOT LOOK BACKWARD. 

" What if the battle end and thou hast lost ? 
Others have lost the battle thou hast won ; 
Haste thee, bind up thy wounds, nor count the cost : 
Over the field will rise to-morrow's sun. 
'Tis all in a lifetime ! " 

The years come and vanish into the past. 

How swiftly the months swing themselves away, 
one by one, to give place to those which are com- 
ing, big with the events that are to make for joy 
or for sorrow, for strength or for weakness in 
each of us individually, in all of us as a peo- 
ple ! 

Into the past each year fades to give place to 
the New one which comes to the world that be- 
lieves itself in changing Time, but which is really 
an eternal Now, only our spiritual eyes are not 
opened to see and understand. 

When the Christmas bells have ceased their 
ringing, when the season's inspiration brought by 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. I 1 5 

the Christ-thought and the wonderful possibilities 
of growth towards the Divine which it holds, has 
faded, then the beginning of the end of the year is 
here. 

Then we stand facing the New Year, which 
comes with noiseless, swift-footed pace out of the 
future. 

What it will bring to us we do not know. 
Whether we shall watch the falling and the melt- 
ing of the snows, the springing forth of the leaves, 
the grass, and the flowers in response to the beat- 
ing of the heart of nature, whether we shall see the 
summer's flowering and the autumn's harvesting 
with the light of gladness or the shadows of grief 
in our eyes, we cannot tell. There is but one 
thing certain — that in our own hands we hold the 
power to make the year that is so near its dawn- 
ing one of such character-growth in the right di- 
rection, that all of the ordinary disappointments 
of life shall seem of little moment. Even the 
great sorrows, the bitter anguish, the grinding 
pain, may be to us only the opportunities for a 
long stride forward. It is the attitude we take 
toward them, the thought-world in which we hold 
ourselves, that will decide the matter. 

" There is no use. Everything I have under- 



n6 life's gateways ; 

taken the past year has proved a failure," do you 
say ? 

In what way? Have you failed upon the 
material or the spiritual side of life? 

Perhaps your business schemes have come to 
naught. Perhaps your neighbor has won where 
you have lost, and you cannot see why. Perhaps 
all of your efforts, all of your work, have seemed 
to be of no avail. You have not succeeded in 
bettering your condition in any way. 

What of that? With the New-Year the tide 
may turn. Your failures may be the stepping- 
stones to a coming success. They may open the 
door to a new endeavor, which will bring to you 
what you are working for, even in a material way. 
What troubles you now may one day be a cause 
for gladness. Not, however, if you wrap your- 
self in gloom and discouragement. Discourage- 
ment produces fear, and fear palsies effort. Shut 
out dark thoughts. You can if you will. Fill 
the mental plane with the thought-forces of hope 
and courage, and faith in ultimate good. Leave 
no room for weakening doubts, for, remember, 
every human being has within him the potenti- 
ality of a god, and it is for him to develop the 
power which that potentiality gives. This is no 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. WJ 

idle imagining, but a truth. " As a man thinketh, 
so is he." Hold this in your thought, for there 
is a deeper philosophical meaning in it than ap- 
pears upon the surface. It means that not only 
can you shape your own inner spiritual life, but 
your outward material one also. 

Yet the latter in reality is as nothing to the 
former. " The only success in life," writes Lilian 
Whiting, " is to grow more sympathetic, more 
helpful, more earnest, more sincere in all loving 
effort. The true ideal is to grow out of all self- 
consciousness, and to do bravely and simply the 
best one can ; give constantly of one's best, how- 
ever poor it may be ; to take the good of others 
to be our own, as George Eliot so well says ; to 
thus live, harmoniously and helpfully, in touch 
with all that makes for righteousness. What 
matters it though one be unappreciated, under- 
valued, misunderstood, if he is really setting his 
course by the stars and working toward the higher 
life?" 

Here is a thought which is worth considering. 
Too many of us measure our effort by what the 
world says of it. In reality it is only a proof of 
selfishness when we are angry because due credit 
has not been given for what we have done or 



Il8 LIFE'S GATEWAYS; 

tried to do. If the object was to help some por- 
tion of humanity to better things, why should we 
be unhappy if the trumpet does not sound our 
praises? The thing is to give help when and 
where it is needed, and it does not matter by 
whom it is given. The purity of a motive may 
be gauged, the unselfishness measured, by the 
tranquillity with which this undervaluation of 
efforts is borne. 

To return. 

Is it on the spiritual side of life that you have 
failed ? During the year now almost gone, have 
you fought some battle with self and lost ? Is 
there some special weakness of character which 
you have not succeeded in overcoming? Does it 
seem as if you just as easily yield to the dreaded 
temptation as before you began the struggle ? 
Let me recall to you the poet's words with which 
I began this article : 

" What if the battle end and thou hast lost ? 
Others have lost the battle thou hast won ; 
Haste thee, bind up thy wounds, nor count the cost ; 
Over the field will rise to-morrow's sun." 

In very truth, however, you may not have 
failed. The recognition of the fault or weakness ; 
the resolve to attempt its cure ; the effort made 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. II9 

to overcome, even though the effort seems un- 
successful — all these prove that a step forward 
has been made from the old condition. 

There is another thought : Spend no time in 
mourning over past mistakes, follies, and failures. 
Read their lesson carefully, then dismiss them 
all. In " Letters That Have Helped Me," are 
these words : " Never regret anything. Regret 
is a thought, hence an energy. If we turn its 
tide upon the past, it plays upon the seeds of 
that past and vivifies them ; it causes them to 
sprout and grow in the ground of the mind, from 
thence to expression in action is but a step." 
You see what is meant, that whatever we dwell 
upon in thought becomes a possibility in action. 
Hold the thinking, as well as the doing, away 
from evil even in retrospection. The past is gone, 
but we have the present in which to work. 

And in that one word "work" lies the secret 
of it all. Do the duty which comes to you to-day 
with all of the energy there is within you. Into 
the effort do not bring anxiety for the morrow, 
for next week, for next year. That anxiety will 
only weaken you. Conquer difficulties ; do not 
let them conquer you. Hold fast to the thought 
that you possess within yourself a potency through 



120 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

soul-development to which there is no limit. And 
this affects the material experiences as well, for, 
as said before, individual success and the world's 
progress depend primarily upon the way in which 
man transforms and transfigures difficulties and 
obstacles by the alembic of energy, and melts 
them in the crucible of exalted purpose. 

Right here in the last words lies the real thought 
which I want to leave with you. It is the exalted 
purpose with which things are undertaken and 
which runs through all effort that brings the 
highest success. In proportion as it is cleansed 
from self-advancement, self-gratification, in pro- 
portion as it lifts proposed effects into thoughts 
for the good of others, so will the results bring 
joy and happiness to one's self and contribute to 
permanent mental and spiritual advancement. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 121 



CHAPTER XVI. 

CHANGE MEANS GROWTH. 

Which way are my feet set ? 
Through infinite changes yet 

Shall I go on, 
Nearer and nearer drawn 

To thee, 
God of eternity ? 
How shall the human grow, 
By changes fine and slow, 
To thy perfection from the 

Life-dawn sought ? — Maurice Thompson. 

Always changing. 

There is absolutely nothing fixed in this world, 
nor do I imagine there can be in any other. 
Every atom that exists is constantly changing its 
conditions, moving onward according to law, 
varying its position with respect to all other 
atoms, and by new associations making new 
forms to carry out the Divine idea. It would be 
an absolute impossibility to find one thing which 
is not subject to this fiat of the Universal Mind. 



122 LIFE'S GATEWAYS ; 

Always changing. 

Two mornings or two evenings will never paint 
the sky with exactly the same coloring. The 
clouds that float from horizon to horizon are 
constantly taking on new shapes that have no 
resemblance each to the other. In the whole 
vegetable world there is a never-ceasing variety. 
No two blades of grass are exactly alike ; the 
leaves upon bush and tree differ in shape, in size, 
and in color, and the differences are constantly 
perpetuating themselves. Go where there are 
hundreds of blossoms belonging to one family 
and they never bud and bloom in exactly the 
same way or with the same results, nor does each 
individual even retain its appearance to the eye. 
A bud to-day, a blossom to-morrow ; anon, the 
fruitage, and then it is gone to reappear again 
when the germ receives its awakening touch from 
the angel of life. This is the story of everything 
that lives in the vegetable world. 

Always changing. 

Did you ever stand by the side of the sea and 
watch the waves as they came rolling in to the 
shore, washing now far up on the shining sands, 
then falling back, again advancing, but with a 
lesser impulse that brought them to a pause as if 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 23 

strength had failed before the same high line 
could be reached ? Did you see them recede in 
long, pulsating lines to return again and yet again 
with ever renewing effort to the charge, and mark 
that never at exactly the same place began their re- 
cession ; that never were those incoming waves of 
the same height, nor their white crests shaped as 
before ? In their brief passage out to what seemed 
a shoreless deep and return again, change was writ- 
ten upon their every part, and we knew them not. 

Always changing. 

To-day the ground is white with snow ; the 
trees shake and toss their bare branches in the 
wind ; while only in the humid atmosphere of 
conservatories and hot-houses, or in the sunny 
windows of the home under the loving care of 
its mistress, are fragrant flowers unfolding to the 
light and breathing forth their sweetness. It will 
be but a few days, almost it might be said, to- 
morrow, when the snowy robe will have vanished 
to appear no more for long months, but, in its 
place, the soft green of the upspringing grass will 
clothe the earth in beauty. Out from the swing- 
ing branches tender buds by the thousand will 
push forward, and drape a soft greenery over their 
nakedness, while starry-eyed blossoms everywhere 



124 LIFE S GATEWAYS; 

tell the story of the new awakening. No one 
dreams of reproaching nature for these changes 
of temperament^ all in accordance with the law 
of life, and all in the end to subserve evolution 
into better conditions. 

Always changing. 

Our bodies that we live in, that are the instru- 
ments with which our real selves are doing the 
work of life, are never the same for two succeed- 
ing moments. Physiologists demonstrate to us 
that every particle of substance in them to-day 
will, in seven years, have given place to a differ- 
ent one, going forth to enter into other bodies, 
and — mark the thought — carrying the impress of 
physical, mental, and moral health which we have 
given them into the new combination. And the 
change goes on ceaselessly. 

Always changing. 

In the intellectual world the same great law is 
at work. New theories are put forth ; new dis- 
coveries are made in accordance with them, com- 
pletely upsetting the old ideas ; and by and by 
the thinking world adjusts itself to the change. 
Not that there is in reality anything new in the 
world ; it is only new to our apprehension. The 
earth surely no more revolved around the sun 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 25 

after Galileo's assertion than it did before, only 
the humanity of the period had not reached a 
knowledge of the truth. The law of evolution — 
development — call it what we may — brought the 
change of thought, which was growth. 

This, too, is true in the world of spiritual 
thought. Ideas may crystallize in what seems 
adamantine hardness, and there seems no change 
possible. And yet it never stands still, for where 
there is a desire for truth, the " heavens unroll as 
a scroll," and as much as the human intellect, as 
the human heart, is ready to receive may be read 
therein. 

Katherine Pearsall Woods well says : " There 
have been periods in the world's history ere now 
when some truth, hitherto overlaid and obscured 
by the traditions of men, has started out upon 
the palimpsest of history with such youthful fresh- 
ness and vigor as to be appropriately called a 
new birth. This new birth comes to an individual 
at a time ; then suddenly it is found to be a part 
of the conscience of the race ; so that it has been 
said that in every reform there has been three 
stages : In the first, people say ' it is absurd ' ; in 
the second, ' it is irreligious ' ; and in the third, 
' everybody knows that.' " 



126 life's gateways ; 

Look over the history of all the great reforms 
the world has accepted, and see how true this is. 
I need only to mention the one of human slavery. 
It does not seem possible that the time was, and 
not so long ago, when the Bible was used in the 
pulpit and out of it to prove the right of one 
man to hold another in bondage, and that men 
were mobbed for denying this right. 

A certain degree of conservatism in accepting 
proposed changes is wise always, but hospitality 
to what is called new thought should never be 
denied. Angels may be entertained unawares in 
this direction as well as in any other. And there 
is nothing more unjust, nothing more unlike the 
Christ-spirit, than to condemn unheard, or unex- 
amined, whatever has vitality enough to make its 
way and be accepted by even a small part of the 
thinking class in the community. And more 
especially is this true, when it is seen that this 
acceptance has, in no sense, degraded the mental 
or the spiritual life of those who believe that they 
are thus taking a step forward. To be tolerant 
does not involve the giving up of sacred convic- 
tions. It only permits freedom to the individual 
to think for himself, with the certainty that what 
there is of error in his thought will surely some- 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 27 

time drop away, leaving whatever of truth it may 
possess. 

There can be no growth without change might 
almost be said to be a truism. If this be so, then 
there may be a better even to a good thing, or, at 
least, a better understanding of the good, and 
hence a wiser action. We know that there are 
infinite possibilities to life ; that if humanity has 
evolved to this stage, there are numberless stages 
beyond for it to reach, and that it can only come 
to each by patient climbing. As the multitude 
is made up of individuals, individual growth be- 
comes of paramount importance, and that can 
only be made through independent thought and 
freedom of opinion. 

The gist of what I want to say lies here : If 
your neighbor who has hitherto walked by your 
side believing what you believe, passes away into 
another path once, twice, or thrice, do not con- 
demn him as a changeling ; do not hold him to 
be utterly depraved ; do not treat him as un- 
worthy of respect ; do not shut him away from 
your brotherly love and offices, but hold him, 
until he proves otherwise, to be actuated only by 
a desire to reach the highest ideal of life. His way 
may not be your way, but it may be a good way 



128 life's gateways ; 

for all that, and quite as likely to bring him to 
the beauty and glory of the at-one-ness with the 
Divine which we all hope to reach. Should he 
be mistaken, his will be the loss. 

Then there is but the one course to be taken 
by the individual who leaves the beaten path for 
one which seems to offer him more of the higher 
realities for which his earnest soul has been seek- 
ing. With patience, with gentleness, but with 
firmness, he must meet and bear whatever of ridi- 
cule, of contumely may be heaped upon him for 
his departure. If his thought leads him upward ; 
if it helps him better to bear misfortune ; if it 
gives him more strength to carry life's burdens ; if 
it better satisfies the hunger of his spirit, he can 
well afford to smile at those things and let them 
pass by without regard. It is not creed, not 
belief, not opinions that matter, only so far as 
they shape the life that is lived ; so far as they 
lead him to be true to his higher, better self. 
That is what tells the story. 

Always changing. 

Oh, blessed law that brings the promise of an 
endless variety of experiences, of an eternity of 
progression ! For it must mean that ; it can 
mean nothing else. It tells us that no pain can 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 29 

last forever, that while we may not forget, time 
will surely sometime bring a softening of the 
greatest sorrow. It declares that the misfortunes 
that overwhelm us to-day may pass on and leave 
the sky unclouded to-morrow. The burden that 
seems beyond the strength to carry, it will surely 
lighten or lift away entirely. It places before us 
wonderful possibilities of growth, of advancement. 
If we may not now possess that which we long 
for, it whispers that somewhere in the path of 
our future the gift awaits our coming. It says 
that if we fail in our efforts once, twice, thrice, 
many times, at last other conditions will bring 
success. We may stumble and fall into the 
depths of shame and despair, but time and 
patience and right living will bring the blessed 
change that works surcease of misery and re- 
gret. 

" Let the great world spin forever down the 
ringing grooves of change." It is a blessed, 
blessed truth that change is written on all things 
material. Only the Infinite Love is the same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever. Only Infinite 
Goodness knows no variableness or shadow of 
turning. And it is because of this grand certainty 
that another thing is true. I have spoken of it 
9 



130 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

often before, but it can never be repeated too 
often. Into our own hands has been placed the 
power of ruling to a large degree these changes 
for good. In every human being are the poten- 
cies of a god. That is, there is that within every 
indvidual, which, if permitted, will open the door 
to the influx of the higher spiritual forces, and 
make possible what has seemed but an impossible 
dream. Most of us have had moments when we 
were conscious of a longing to do and dare all 
things that were difficult ; when to overcome ap- 
peared easy. And for the time it was easy, because 
we were conscious of this higher spiritual force, 
which might be with us always if so we willed. 
Doubt and fear effectually shut it away, and these 
are generally in control. 

Some one has well written : " Character is a 
loving process, an endlessly varying movement, a 
continuous new creation. The unity of character 
is never broken, but it is never fixed. Nothing 
can be said to be, but all is becoming." This 
truth enhances the importance of holding our- 
selves through all uncertainties, all changes, 
steadily in the life of hope and faith, refusing to be 
afraid, refusing to doubt that all things come to 
him who believeth. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 131 



CHAPTER XVII. 

HELP YOURSELF. 

"The golden opportunity 
Is never offered twice ; seize then the hour 
When fortune smiles, and duty points the way." 

Everybody is the architect of his own for- 
tune. 

This is a truth which ought to enter into every 
lesson taught to the young from the earliest be- 
ginnings of education. They should be made to 
rely upon themselves, to stand by their own 
strength, at the earliest moment possible. The 
story is told that Beethoven found at the end of 
Moscheles' work which he was examining, these 
words written : " Finis, with God's help." In- 
stantly he took a pen and wrote under it " Man, 
help yourself." He meant no irreverence, I am 
sure, but simply intended to convey the idea that 
man must find within himself the strength and 
power which he needs in the battle of life, and 
not depend upon anything, even the Divine, if he 
feels it is wholly without his own being. 



132 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

Emerson puts it in this way : " Take the place 
and attitude which belong to you, and all men 
acquiesce. The world must be just. It leaves 
every man with profound unconcern to set his 
own rate." That is, the world never troubles 
itself to provide crutches for those who cannot 
stand alone, but calmly looks on while they go down 
before the rush of hurrying feet in the pathway 
which they are treading with trembling, uncertain 
steps. By the power of their own will they must 
put aside doubt and fear, and then the trembling 
will subside, and the step grow firm and elastic. 

Whatever you demand of the world as one 
having a right to the thing demanded, that the 
world will give you. There is no doubt about it. 
It uses your own measure to gauge your place. 
That is the reason why some people — you can 
all think of instances — climb to positions which 
may seem far beyond their ability to fill. They 
reach such places because of the belief that they 
are theirs by right. Whether they retain them 
or sink back into obscurity depends upon their 
fitness, and this fitness again is the result of the 
character which they have made in the past. If 
they have the true staying-power they will not 
fall back, or, if they do, it will be only to rise again. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 33 

A young man, a day-laborer in a factory, crit- 
icised the management, remarking finally, that 
when he was at the head of affairs he should do 
differently. 

" You!" exclaimed his companions ; " that is a 
good joke ! " 

" It may look like a joke to you," he respond- 
ed, unmoved by their laughter, " but I shall get 
there." 

And he did. 

It is said that Grant before he invested Vicks- 
burg — the latter a proceeding contrary to all 
military rules — deliberately cut off every com- 
munication with the Mississippi river, so that no 
orders from General Halleck, then his superior 
officer, could reach him. So strong was his con- 
viction that he could win success in this way, that 
he would run no risk of interference. He believed 
in himself rather than in military theories. It is 
true that he took a great responsibility, because 
it was not only his own life and fortune that he 
held in the balance, but the lives of thousands of 
fellow-men, yet the end justified him and showed 
his greatness. 

There is a poem which I cannot now recall 
clearly enough to quote, that is an apt illustra- 



I 34 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

tion of this power of creating our own success or 
failure. In musical cadences, it tells of the 
sculptor who stood before the block of uncut 
marble with his chisel in his hand, and with a 
glorious ideal in his thought which he was deter- 
mined to carve out of the stone. Day after day 
he patiently toiled on. Slowly it grew into the 
thing of beauty which he had dreamed of. Some- 
times the tool with which he worked slipped, and 
the toil of days would seem undone, but still 
he wrought, until, at last, his vision was fashioned 
into a reality. He believed from the beginning 
that this ideal might be brought from the unseen 
into the seen, and that he could himself work the 
marvel. His faith in his own power, his belief in 
the possibility of accomplishment, and his pa- 
tience in effort compelled success. 

The ideal became the real. 

Have, then, environment and opportunity noth- 
ing to do with success ? They certainly have, for 
both are important factors, but they are by no 
means the sole determining ones. Environment 
may be changed, not to-day, perhaps, nor to-mor- 
row, but when the right moment comes, that 
moment which you have.with unvarying resolution, 
worked towards, making it the basis of effort, 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 35 

though always without neglecting present duty. 
Opportunity for progress comes alike to all. 
What is needed is watchfulness that it may not 
slip by unheeded, for 

" The golden opportunity 
Is never offered twice ; seize then the hour 
When fortune smiles, and duty points the way." 

Yet, do not misunderstand this quotation. Do 
not imagine that, because, in looking backward, 
you see some chance lost which, taken by another, 
has brought to him prosperity, therefore, further 
effort on your part is useless. That might have 
been his "golden opportunity," but not necessa- 
rily yours. You might have failed, and probably 
would if your way was not clear without neglect- 
ing duty, for you notice the latter must point the 
way. No doubt, however, many of us do let the 
" golden opportunity " slip by unnoticed and un- 
improved because we allow fear and timidity to 
rule our lives and cloud our judgment. 

Whittier puts the thought I want to convey in 
verse : 

" The tissue of the life to be 

We weave with colors all our own ; 
And in the field of destiny 
We reap as we have sown." 



136 LIFE'S GATEWAYS; 

It is the same truth that the lives we live to-day- 
are the result of the past, and that in the time to 
come we shall reap what we are sowing in the 
present. And this is true of the material as well 
as of the mental and the spiritual. 

Impress the young, girls as well as boys, that 
they are the architects of their own fortune, that 
self-reliance is the key to success, and the future 
will show fewer men and women who have slipped 
into the wrong groove because that was the 
nearest, and therefore necessarily to be taken. 
Teach them, too, that no mistake is irretrievable 
so long as life lasts. The struggle required may 
be a tough one, but the difficulties, met bravely, 
develop in them a strength that will do good 
service always. 

Parents make a great mistake when they toil 
and grind, scrimp and save, in order that their 
children may commence where they leave off. It 
is necessity that develops the wings with which 
to fly to lofty heights. This shutting out of 
your own life all the light and beauty of the world, 
in order to "flood theirs from the beginning, is to 
make a wide difference between you which often 
produces bitter sorrow, even if it does not bring 
to them failure or a dwarfing of their powers. If 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 37 

life gives them ease and comfort without effort, 
there are nine chances in ten that no effort will 
be made, and hence no true growth in character. 
Rather make them understand that they are and 
must be the architects of their own lives, and 
that difficulties make the ladder by which they 
may the higher climb. 



I38 LIFE'S GATEWAYS; 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A SOURCE OF WEAKNESS. 

All experiences are valuable for the wisdom they bring or 
suggest. But when you have once gained wisdom and knowl- 
edge from any experience, there is little profit in repeating it, 
especially if it has been unpleasant. — Prentice Mulford. 

KEEP your troubles and discouragements to 
yourselves. 

Does that seem hard and unsympathetic? It 
is only a lesson which it is well to learn so per- 
fectly that it cannot easily be forgotten. And 
this is the reason. In this world, beautiful as it 
is, full of the glory of the sun and the moon and 
the stars, of the trees and the grass and the flowers, 
full of the songs of birds, of the laughter of 
children, of the sweet tones of love and friendship, 
there is yet a strong undertow of sorrow, of pain, 
of misery, of which no human being escapes a 
share. It is not pleasant to have the heart wrung, 
to endure discomfort, to meet disappointment. 
We have not yet, many of us, arrived at the 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 39 

point where we recognize the ministry of pain, 
and realize to the extent of making it welcome, 
that it is the source of the greatest spiritual 
growth, which is the real aim of life. We " kick 
against the pricks " instead, and get as far away 
from them as possible. 

This effort grows out of a law of life, although 
it may be recognized only as a desire to be com- 
fortable. Everything, however, gains by what it 
feeds on, and a continued dwelling upon a pain, 
whether it be physical or mental, only intensifies 
it into greater proportions until it shadows 
everything. It is natural that it should, for we 
attract to ourselves those thought-currents from 
without which harmonize with our own. If we 
hug misery to ourselves, by unerring law the 
tides of weakening, unhappy thought set towards 
us, flow into our being, rising higher and higher 
until we are submerged. Like seeks like every- 
where ; and because thought is unseen, it does not 
follow that it has not vital force and power. So 
is electricity unseen until its effects are made 
visible. 

Naturally, hopeful thoughts open the door to 
their kin, and the effect is to lighten pain and to 
put the giant Fear to flight. Then our mental 



140 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

skies grow brighter, discouragements fade away, 
and we are ready to exclaim that this world is not 
so bad a world after all as some would like to 
make it. This attitude of mind works wonders, 
as is demonstrated every day, though the law 
that governs it has only come recently to be 
better understood. We have no right to load 
our pains and discouragements upon other people, 
even when they seem to be willing. And not 
only is it a wrong to them, but a wrong to our- 
selves as well. We are weakening our own powers 
of resistance every time we go over our list of 
ills. Instead of gathering from that which has 
come to us the best of what there is in it, being 
sure that it contains a lesson for our learning 
which, is needed for the growth of the soul, we 
are too apt to call in our friends and neighbors, 
pour into their listening ears the tale of our woes, 
and when we have finished find our burdens in- 
creased. The fact that if " you laugh, the world 
laughs with you," while it turns away when you 
weep, is not so heartless as it seems. It is really 
only Nature's protest against feeding pain, and I 
tell you we have no right to do that either to 
ourselves or others. 

Then another thing about this seeking for 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 141 

sympathy. With it for a pretext, some people 
not only make their own affairs public property, 
but everything which chances to come to them 
of their neighbor's is projected upon the atten- 
tion of the people they meet, carrying with it the 
coloring of their mind through which it has 
filtered, and thus often bearing a meaning that is 
far from truth. 

I am not now speaking of gossip pure and simple, 
but of that disposition which is constantly seek- 
ing to make confidants, to get help in keeping 
one's own secrets, or those of friends that have 
happened to become a possession. An open con- 
fession is good for the soul, says an old saw, but 
there was never one more untrue if taken liter- 
ally. Unless there is some wrong which can only 
thus be righted, there is absolutely nothing more 
foolish than to pour into ears, however friendly, 
the tale of one's own wrongdoing. It is not 
only foolish, but often it becomes a sin, because 
it hurts people needlessly. No one stands ab- 
solutely alone. Either directly or indirectly our 
lives and actions are interwoven with those of 
others who are affected by what we do. And so 
when we are moved to seek sympathy by con- 
fession, it is wise to stop and think whether 



^ 



142 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

silence, after all, will not be golden, and a quiet 
endurance of this humiliating self-knowledge a 
duty. 

Another thing : Nobody need expect that 
other people are going to keep secret what one 
cannot keep one's self. Why should they ? Why 
should you or I expect them to do what we are 
unable to do for ourselves? Each one has, with- 
out doubt, some intimate friend to whom it will 
be no sin to convery in trust what we have proven 
our inability to hold, and so it will go on until it 
becomes common property, and that, without a 
disposition in a single person to betray or injure 
any one. 

So much for confessing personal sins and in- 
firmities to others. It needs but simple logic to 
see that if it be wise to keep our own counsel with 
regard to shadows, faint or strong, that may have 
fallen upon our lives, the law of love, the law of 
justice, demands that the neighbor's secret which 
has come to our knowledge shall be held equally 
sacred. If everybody fulfilled this law, fewer 
would be the darkened homes, the desolate 
hearts, the broken lives. 

Unfortunately there are too many who are like 
sieves so far as keeping secret aught concerning 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 143 

either themselves or others. They enjoy tell- 
ing something new — something that will draw 
forth exclamations of wonder, or make the 
eyes of their hearers grow big with amazement. 
They may have pledged their sacred word of 
honor to secrecy, but memory lapses under the 
stress of temptation, and the news finds another 
keeper. There is no malice in the telling, no 
harm intended, but there is what sometimes 
proves worse, an absolute carelessness of conse- 
quences. When you come in contact with such 
people, no matter how winning they may be, how 
rich in sweet and tender sympathy they appear, 
no matter if you know them to be full of the 
milk of human kindness, if there be anything 
which you do not want the public to learn, or 
which you hold in trust, put it forthwith under 
lock and key, and give the latter an extra twist to 
guard it against picking. 

What I have said may seem like advice not to 
trust anybody, because there is no one who is 
true. I do not mean it so. I believe that there 
are those who would sooner cut off their right 
hand than betray a trust or break their word 
once given, but their number is not legion. For 
the greater part, secrets incidentally told are not 



144 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

regarded as trusts even if accompanied by a 
request that they shall not be repeated. The 
request is looked upon as a sort of preface to 
arouse interest and whet curiosity. So com- 
mon is this way of viewing it that the best of 
people, in nine cases out of ten, are not impressed 
with any sense of its real importance. 

If there is anything which you do not want the 
world to know, I repeat the advice — lock it in 
your own heart and throw away the key. If an- 
other's secret has come into your possession, and 
you think its telling in the community might 
work injury, treat it as if it were your own or 
concerned your nearest and dearest. Reticence 
may be carried to an extreme, but that is better 
than being a sieve. If any one is in the habit of 
telling you other people's secrets because she can 
trust you, then beware, take care. You are only 
one of many confidants, and, whatever you give 
out of your own life will soon be passed on to 
others. 

Then, again, things are rarely repeated as they 
are told, and this not because of a desire to mis- 
represent, but that words are many-sided, as are 
minds, and are apprehended according as they 
touch. What starts out as a story innocent in it- 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 145 

self may be transformed by and by into a blast- 
ing lie, and there is no redress for the sufferer. 

Tell no secrets then from a weak desire for 
sympathy, or for the pleasure of telling. Hold 
them fast unless help is needed that cannot be ob- 
tained by silence, or others are to be thus assisted 
or justified. If by your own act suffering has 
come to you, bear it without flinching, but do not 
lay its weight, by needless repetition, upon others. 
Let the dead past bury its dead, and keep its 
ghost out of the consciousness of those with 
whom you come in contact. And above all let 
the silence that is golden fall upon you regarding 
whatever confidence you may receive from friend 

or neighbor. 
10 



4 6 life's gateways ; 



CHAPTER XIX. 

POWER OF FAITH. 

" What a man does, that he has. What has he to do with hope 
or fear ? In himself is his might." 

Emerson preached a whole sermon in the few 
lines quoted above. There is in that, as in 
everything that he wrote, a positive and mag- 
netic belief, if read aright, in the possibilities be- 
longing to every being that lives. " In himself is 
his might." The trouble lies with the hope or 
fear that rules the self, varying from one condi- 
tion to the other, and with which conditions, in 
reality, he should have nothing to do. 

Nothing to do with hope ! you exclaim. 

Absolutely nothing if for the individual self we 
hold ourselves in the right spirit. Hope is a good 
thing only because of the small amount of vital- 
ity contained in our beliefs. That " faith is the 
gateway of all the glory and the power of the 
spiritual world," is true. " The one barrier to all 
progress, individual and universal, is the partial 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. I47 

and fragmentary way in which people accept the 
great truths of spiritual life." True again. We 
say we believe a thing and then go straightway 
about our business in the home, and in our places 
of labor, as fearful and doubtful as if there were 
no divine promises, and the things we have 
affirmed were untrue. If Christians really had 
faith in what they utter with their lips ; if they 
really held fast to the declaration that, as a man 
thinketh so he is, and acted accordingly, the world 
would be a very different place to live in. " Gloom 
would give place to gladness ; depression to ex- 
altation ; inertia to energy ; halting effort to 
greatness of achievement." 

We must have faith in the power which lies in 
each one of us individually, if we are to bring 
anything we desire to pass in our limited world. 
This halting, stumbling, fearing, half-hearted way 
of attempting anything, in itself brings the ele- 
ments of defeat. Through faith in ourselves and 
in our own ability to reach certain accomplish- 
ment, and with confidence in the truth that there 
is a divine nature within that will guide us to the 
right place, the right work, and the right enjoy- 
ments, we shall be able to lead successful lives. 
11 Place yourself in the middle of the stream of 



148 life's gateways ; 

power and wisdom which animates all whom it 
floats, and you are without effort impelled to 
truth, to right, and a perfect contentment," is an- 
other bit of wisdom which Emerson has put in a 
nutshell. The " perfect contentment " of which 
he speaks is the enjoyment of a life in harmony 
with its environments and its accomplishment. 

Doubt and fear paralyze effort, and that is one 
cause of so many of our failures. " The man or 
woman who succeeds must always in mind or 
imagination live, move, think, and act as if they 
had gained that success, or they never will gain 
it," wrote Prentice Mulford. It is the silent force 
of the mind, the quiet mood of resolve firmly 
held to, that makes people gravitate to whatever 
place they seek. 

Children should be taught to take this attitude 
from the very moment they begin to think for 
themselves, and that is very early. The old idea 
that their wills should be broken is absolutely 
wrong. A strong, determined, persistent will is 
a blessing and a great factor in attaining success 
in any path. The thing is to teach them to con- 
trol and to direct it, using it as a spiritual gift of the 
highest value. Help them to employ it in de- 
veloping whatever other gifts they have which 



may be seeking expression. And if this one is 
latent in a large degree, if they seem easily swayed 
to and fro, then the effort should be directed to 
its cultivation ; to making them see that in order 
to live in any degree successfully, they must learn 
to select what is fit for them and to reject what 
is unfit, and to do it determinately. Nature will 
tell the story unerringly, and if listened to, it will 
be a certain guide to the parents as well as to the 
children themselves. 

The trouble with the present methods of edu- 
cation is the small regard paid to the individ- 
uality of each child. We lay down lines by plum- 
met and rule ; we cut and prune according to 
some preconceived idea of what will make good 
citizens in a general way, with little attention to 
the soul within that is struggling for a chance for 
outward expression. Children should be " guided 
into symmetrical action toward the higher ideals," 
following, however, that path which they will in- 
evitably seek if not placed in bonds to other wills, 
that will bring them soonest to the desired goal. 

The importance of " symmetrical " or harmoni- 
ous action cannot be overestimated. It is only 
by this that the natural unfolding of the mind 
and spirit can be carried out. If a boy wants to 



I50 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

be a carpenter and he is made a minister, all of 
the devoting him to the Lord's service of which 
the parents are capable, will not bring him to 
symmetrical action. He will be forever strug- 
gling, forever beating against the stream that is 
carrying him forward, forever finding, when he 
needs them most, his hands glued to his sides or 
beating his own breast. It is the old story of 
trying to fit a square peg in a round hole ; it can- 
not be done until the peg is beaten and bruised 
out of all semblance to its original self, and then 
it is very likely to " wobble " in its place. 

The true education must also comprehend the 
teachings of the relative value of things. The 
whole nature is often warped by the example — if 
not the direct instilling — of over-care for trifles. 
People fret and worry needlessly about what 
amounts to so very little in the day's living. 
Children see this, and they learn to fret and worry 
over little things, too, expending force for which 
there is no return. If they could be taught that 
what is done, is done, and all they have now to 
do with it is to read its lesson and let it go ; if 
they could be made to see that to-morrow will 
take care of itself, if they but live to their best 
to-day by doing its duties conscientiously, life 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 5 1 

would be much easier and more harmonious to 
them than it is to most people now. " Nature 
will not have us fret and fume." She wants us 
to live in accordance with her laws, and if we do 
that we are sure to find that her ways are ways 
of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. 

If children are only taught to believe in them- 
selves, and " to learn to trust to their own power 
to do anything, and while accepting helps from 
others, regarding always the helps as secondary 
to their own power of pushing things ahead/' 
then they have conquered a lesson of vital im- 
portance. A boy or girl trained from the begin- 
ning in this faith in the good that is within them, 
for this is what it is, will never stray far from the 
paths of righteousness. They will not be intem- 
perate ; they will not be vicious. The whole 
spirit of Froebel's kindergarten teachings is in 
this direction. It is not egotism, the I-am-I, and 
therefore smarter than thou, but the / can, be- 
cause of the potentialities of each human being, 
to the development of which by faith there is no 
limit. 

" And all that Nature made thy own, 
Floating in air or pent in stone, 
Will rive the hills and swim the sea, 
And like thy shadow, follow thee." 



152 LIFES GATEWAYS ; 

Well indeed for us, this being true, that we 
follow Nature's laws, which are always and ever 
harmonious, so that when our own comes to us 
there will be a happy recognition. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 53 



CHAPTER XX. 

UNWISDOM OF ANGER. 

"The soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal 
causation ; perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and 
calms itself with knowing that all things go well." 

11 Do not write it." 

"Why?" and she whirled in her chair, flashing 
out the question with eyes aflame with anger, 
while the hand that held the pen shook with 
excitement. 

" Because you will be sorry when your anger 
has passed," was the reply. 

u But it will never pass," she affirmed with con- 
viction. " I will never forget or forgive this 
injury, and I want to put it down in black and 
white that she may know how I feel." 

" And yet I repeat, do not write it. Wait until 
the heat of your anger is gone, and then go and 
say to her whatever you wish her to understand. 
By and by you will be glad that you never sent 
such a letter as you now think of writing." 

" But why ? " she persisted. " There is nothing, 



154 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

nothing that can ever make me feel differently, 
and I can say it now in a letter so that it will 
hurt." 

Did she send the letter? 

I do not know, but I hope not, for surely if 
she did the time will come, if it has not already, 
when it will be a matter for sore regret. Words 
spoken in anger may be atoned for, but written, 
they stand as witness against the writer under 
whatever new circumstances may arise to change 
the feeling that called it forth. Time may dim 
the memory of the bitterness, even if it be cer- 
tain that it had foundation ; and if it had none, it 
will fade away utterly. Perhaps you who read 
what I am saying may remember Christina 
Rosetti's beautiful poem : 

" Looking back along life's trodden way, 

Gleams and greenness linger on the track ; 
Distance melts and mellows all to-day, 
Looking back. 
" Rose and purple and a silvery gray, 

Is that cloud, the cloud we called so black. 
Evening harmonizes all to-day, 
Looking back. 
" Foolish feet so prone to halt or stray, 
Foolish heart so restive on the rack, 
Yesterday we sighed, but not to-day, 
Looking back." 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 55 

11 Distance melts and mellows all to-day, look- 
ing back," and so I say, put no angry words on 
paper ; say no bitter thing with pen and ink that 
may rise up in later days, to remind you and others 
of a time when anger shut the door upon that 
Higher Self that ever stands ready to lead you 
aright. 

Yet, if you must shape these words either with 
voice or pen ; if thus and thus only may the 
tumult be calmed, write them down and then 
destroy them. This was the rule of one warm- 
hearted, quick-tempered woman whose besetting 
sin was sudden and sweeping fits of passion. She 
would rush away to her room and pour out a 
torrent of angry denunciations upon paper, but 
she never sent the document to the offender. 
She had learned by sad experience that the time 
would come when the cloud that to-day looked 
so black would " fade into silvery gray," and 
then shame and regret would take possession of 
her spirit. 

I remember reading a story somewhere of a 
man who received an angry letter from another 
believing himself injured. He read it, and though 
moved to bitterness, laid it away in his desk with- 
out making a reply. Time passed. When dis- 



156 life's gateways ; 

tance had mellowed the memory, the writer of the 
letter came into his power in an unexpected way. 
He held in his control what was almost a matter 
of life and death to the other. Moved by sym- 
pathy he was about to act the part of true 
brotherhood, when what men miscall fate led 
him to the reading again of the angry letter writ- 
ten years before. The bitterness roused by the 
accusations revived, and he turned away from his 
fellow-man, leaving the latter to reap a quick 
harvest from what had been sown in passion. 
Neither the one nor the other had learned to 
overcome the hurt self and hold it in abeyance. 

Do not imagine for one moment, however, that 
I believe the immediate destruction of the written 
words to be the true way, the best way of all in 
such moments of overwhelming passion. The 
wise thing is to begin the work of overcoming 
the tendency to lose self-control because some 
one has injured you, or, at least, you think he has 
done so ; the tendency to become temporarily in- 
sane, subject to the waves of discordant thoughts 
which then sweep over you. Prentice Mulford 
wrote these words of truth : 

" Our minds do literally feed our bodies with 
the thoughts in them. All thoughts are things 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 57 

sent from the mind to the body where they are 
crystallized or materialized into the visible sub- 
stance of the body. Your body is a thought 
expressing in visible substance the mind that 
makes it. If our minds in ignorance try to build 
an untrue thought into the body it cannot last. 
It proves itself an untruth by decay. When true 
thoughts are sent from spirit to body they will 
prove themselves by making life everlasting for 
the body, as life is everlasting for the spirit." 

You see what he means by untrue thoughts. 
They include the thoughts which anger brings, 
even if the latter seems to have just provocation, 
for, as I said before, anger is insanity. And when 
such thoughts become " visible substance," that 
substance must be without health and without 
strength, for it is built of inharmonies. 

To overcome ! To make ourselves channels 
for the Infinite Good to work through ! This 
should be the end and aim of life ; but small pro- 
gress can be made when the passion of anger so 
dominates our powers that any chance word of 
others may sweep us away from our spiritual 
moorings, rob us of self-control, weaken our forces, 
and shut the door against the current of Good 
that is ever setting toward those who hold them- 



158 life's gateways ; 

selves in serenity. The law of all being is harmony, 
and whoever creates discord, must, in some way, 
suffer until it is restored. " Every pain, every 
uneasiness of mind or body, great or small, is a 
judgment entered up against us, but only with 
the aim of keeping us where we shall grow into 
ever increasing happiness." 

It is not punishment, remember, as we use the 
word. It is simply the tendency of a universal 
law which has been broken to restore the best 
and highest conditions, those which will bring 
health and happiness to humanity as a whole. It 
is the Infinite Good working itself out in its own 
way through all manifestation, and that way is 
the one to bring final harmony to all life. It is 
the way of love universal. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 59 



CHAPTER XXI. 

BE NOT SELFISH IN LOVE. 

" You shall overcome the world with all its dangers and trials 
by love. Let us learn how to love." 

One of the most subtle forms of selfishness is 
that which masquerades under the title of family 
love, or of friendship, and assumes absolute au- 
thority and proprietorship because of such re- 
lations. That kind of affection which expresses 
itself constantly in exactions, which demands of 
the loved one a continual yielding up of the in- 
dividuality to accord with the will or judgment 
of another, lest that other feel injured, is, by no 
means, a sentiment that has an uplifting power, 
or that will help make either one strong in char- 
acter or fine in purpose. 

Dr. George D. Herron says that " the affections 
are the social energies which are working out the 
unity and harmony of human life," and it is true. 
It is, therefore, a necessity that they be divested, 
so far as possible, of that selfish quality which 



160 life's gateways , 

makes of love " private property to be held for 
the gratification of one's self." They must be 
consecrated to the good of all, first to aiding in 
the development of the loved, and then to mak- 
ing them subserve the good of society. 

Let me make my meaning a little clearer. In 
a family are several children, bright and active, 
but differing widely in temperament and in their 
tendencies. The parents love them devotedly. 
They are willing to work night and day to keep 
them comfortable, and to afford them every 
advantage for their future lives out in the world. 
They sacrifice their own pleasures to give them 
pleasure ; often go shabby that they may be well 
dressed. All this they may do, and do gladly. 
In the hearts of this father and mother, however, 
is a strong undercurrent of conviction that these 
children are " our children, and therefore they 
must think as we think ; must tread the path we 
desire them to tread ; must find their happiness 
where we direct them to look for it ; must believe 
as we believe, or they do not appreciate what we 
have done for them and fail utterly in their duty." 

Now this is all wrong. It is selfishness pure 
and simple. Each child is a soul struggling to raise 
itself to higher conditions, and the parent's respon- 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. l6l 

sibility begins -and ends in directing it wisely 
through those days when it needs such direction, 
but never compelling it to go wholly their way, 
against the tendencies which lead it by a different 
route to its own line of expression. No boy should 
be obliged to study law when his tastes lead to a 
commercial life, nor to enter the ministry when 
his greatest delight is in the handling of tools. 
No girl's taste should be repressed because its in- 
dulgence will lead her out of the home, and cause 
her to disappoint fondly cherished hopes for the 
future. The result of this course upon the part 
of parents must bring open rebellion and conse- 
quent suffering, or an obedience which will result 
in stunted or broken lives. Individuality must 
find expression, and it is the part of wisdom to 
let it take its own way in the main, under the 
loving, helpful guidance of the parents. 

I am sure that no one will understand me that 
obedience to parents should not be required of 
the child. That is part of his training for future 
usefulness. It is a lesson that we all have to ac- 
quire at some time — that of yielding up our wills 
when it is right so to do. And it is so much 
easier, it will save so much suffering, if, in earlier 
years, the boy or girl learns pleasant submission 



1 62 life's gateways ; 

to rightful authority ; but that authority should 
not be carried too far. You see, the whole matter 
does not consider only to-day and to-morrow, 
simply the success or the failure from the mate- 
rial, or what people falsely call the only practical, 
side of life. It means something of infinitely 
greater moment than this, important in many re- 
spects as even this is. It means the building of 
character for all eternity. It means growth on 
the spiritual side of life, the gaining of strength, 
the development of power, the bringing of har- 
mony to the whole being. If boys or girls, 
standing upon the verge of manhood or woman- 
hood, or just beyond the threshold which they have 
crossed, find themselves hampered, or compelled 
to wholly give up what seems to them a desirable 
purpose to work out, in order to follow the will 
of others, even if those others be their own parents, 
there will be an inner resentment always warring 
against accomplishment, whether they are con- 
scious of it or not. 

I said a little way back that people falsely call 
material successor failure the "only" practical 
thing to be considered. I mean this : that spirit- 
ual growth is apt to be looked upon as something 
outside of daily and hourly thought. On the 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 63 

contrary, it should be the basis of every action. 
It should enter into the doing of every duty, of 
every task, no matter how trifling. It is in- the 
small things that lie the real means of progress. 
Most of us can summon strength to meet the 
great crises with some degree of courage ; but it 
is the endurance of the little pin-pricks inflicted 
upon us which demands the real fortitude ; it is 
the doing day by day, over and over, of the 
homely things which seem so meaningless and so 
without any lasting purpose for which we need 
spiritual force. And so its winning, even for the 
present, is in the highest degree important. 

This brings me to another thing regarding the 
selfishness of exclusive love, and I will again quote 
from Dr. Herron, who speaks from such a wide 
outlook upon life. " Delight in any human rela- 
tion or affection, chiefly for the happiness it 
brings to one's self, is a perversion of love, and the 
reversion of the force that is working out the 
social evolution. Humanity is one body, of 
which each individual life is a function ; human 
society is one development, of which each individ- 
ual is God's organ ; human life has one immor- 
tality, which is to be gained through each individ- 
ual affection becoming at last a social energy." 



164 life's gateways ; 

Here is an expression of the unity of all life and 
the responsibility which that brings. The love 
which only regards the return love and the grati- 
fication of self, be it that of family or friend; 
which only looks to the well-being of the loved 
to the exclusion of all others, perverts a law of 
life, obedience to which will bring an uplifting 
of all life. The deepest affections of the human 
heart suffer no diminution in their strength, when 
their light and warmth are made to enter in and 
pervade all the relations of the individual to society 
and to humanity. 

I have dwelt more particularly upon one side of 
the family relation, that of parents to children, 
but the same thing is true of all, in all places and 
under all circumstances. The friend who de- 
mands the exclusive devotion of the friend, who 
desires to absorb the whole of his love without 
regard to others, is ministering to a selfishness 
that often defeats its own dearest hopes and 
wishes. What we should aim to do is to love 
family and friends not for what they may do for 
our gratification, not because they are ours, but 
for what we may do for them to make their life- 
lessons easier to learn, and the world a more beau- 
tiful place to live in. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 165 



CHAPTER XXII. 

A WORD TO GIRLS. 

" An honest man, close buttoned to the chin, 
Broadcloth without, and warm heart within." 

GlRLS, I have a word for you. 

Before you decide to give your fair, sweet 
young womanhood into the keeping of that young 
man who is so eloquently suing for your love, make 
sure by every test which you can apply, that he 
has lived and is living a life that is morally 
clean and upright. If you know nothing of his 
antecedents, as you value the happiness of your 
whole future, obtain that knowledge ere you go 
one step farther. Do not feel that you are cruelly 
doubting him, or casting a reflection upon his 
honor, by demanding these proofs of his worth- 
iness to become your husband. If he be a true 
man, he will rejoice in the opportunity of show- 
ing you the truth in regard to himself. Hesita- 
tion, or anger, or wounded feeling on his part 
should only make you more decided to read the 



1 66 life's gateways ; 

record of his past life, as he is reading yours. Girls 
often have a great deal of foolish sentiment in 
regard to this matter. They fancy that it shows 
the depth and strength of their love to ask no 
questions which seem to admit the possibility of 
deception. This blind faith may be very beau- 
tiful after a man has once proven that he is 
worthy of its bestowal, but it is the height of 
folly to give it until you have made sure that he 
is really your " prince. " 

An honest man with a warm heart. That is 
what each one of you should try to make sure of 
when you promise to become his wife. Perfec- 
tion is not possible here and now, and if it were, 
for the ordinary mortal it would not be pleasant 
to live with ; but a good, clean, capable man who 
means to be true to the God that is within him, 
his own higher self, is not so rare that a woman 
need give her life into the keeping of a husband 
who has tarnished his manhood with vicious in- 
dulgences. Though the man who is suing for 
your favor have the mien of a prince, if his voice 
be set to sweetest music, if his hands are full of 
gold, be sure that he is not a moral leper before 
you take the irrevocable vows that are to make 
or mar your whole future. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. l6/ 

It is a great pity that the same law of moral 
cleanliness is not binding upon man as upon 
woman. There is no reason why it should not 
be. Granted what is claimed, that a young man's 
passions are stronger and his temptations greater 
than those of a girl, yet as he credits himself 
with greater strength, he should not seek to 
excuse his sins, or, after the fashion of all cow- 
ards, hide behind a flimsy plea like that. Society 
is to blame for this, however. It smiles indul- 
gently on the young fellow who is debasing his 
manhood, invites him with pleasant words into 
the parlor, and leaves him to win, unchecked, 
the love of the fair young daughter, who has 
been so sedulously guarded from knowledge of 
evil. Time and again the same tragedy is played 
out that these lines of Boyesen's so well de- 
scribe : 

" He sat in honor's seat, 
And rapturous ladies gazed into his eyes. 
She stood without, beneath the wintry skies, 
In snow and sleet. 

" He spoke of Faith's decay ; 
The ladies sighed because he spoke so true. 
She hid her face in hands frost-numbed and blue, 
But dared not pray. 



l68 LIFE'S GATEWAYS; 

" In church, in court and street, 
Men bowed and ladies smiled where'er he went. 
She stole through life, by shame and hunger bent, 

With bleeding feet. 

" Upon his wedding day 
She stood with burning eyes that fain would weep, 
And heard the dancers' tread, the music's sweep, 
Sound far away. 

" The bride so pure and true 
He took unto himself with haughty mood ; 
And all the paltry world applauding stood, 
Though well it knew. 

" The while in frost and snow 
Half clad she stood, upon whose maiden breast 
He pledged his faith, for love's supremest test, 
In joy and woe." 

Parents are more to blame for this state of 
things than their daughters, inasmuch as they 
know the misery inflicted, and yet honor the 
wrongdoer by giving to him their choicest 
treasure. If they do not know it, in nine cases 
out of ten it is because of neglect and careless- 
ness in their endeavor to learn. I heard of a case 
within the last few days where a girl was about 
to be wedded to a man from a neighboring town, 
when, by merest accident, it was learned that he 
was already married. Only think of it ! A ride 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 69 

of a few miles and a little inquiry by that father 
and mother, when the first evidence of a deeper 
than ordinary interest in their child appeared, 
would have saved them and her this bitter humil- 
iation. He was a fair-appearing stranger giving 
a plausible account of himself, which was ac- 
cepted without question as true. It was not 
strange that an inexperienced girl, won by a smart 
appearance and well-told story, should be satis- 
fied, so long as her parents seemed to accept his 
interpretation of himself as true. 

Such a thing as this, which is nothing new, as 
records show, could not have happened in any 
other country in the world, for nowhere else are 
young girls allowed such absolute liberty to order 
their own lives, and nowhere else would parents 
so often look blandly and consentingly on, w r hile 
their daughters wed husbands of whom they know 
nothing. 

It is because you have such freedom, girls, that 
I am talking to you. You have decision of char- 
acter enough, when once you understand how 
much is involved, to take care of your future. 
Remember, as I said before, that you have an 
absolute right to demand the moral cleanliness of 
your lover that he requires of you. If any one 



170 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

tells you that it is not a girl's province to think 
of these things, do not believe it. Ignorance is 
not innocence. At any rate, if you are old enough 
to consider the question of marrying, you are old 
enough to decide upon the character you wisli 
the man of your choice to possess. You want 
him to have held, and to still keep, such a rever- 
ence for true womanhood in his heart that dis- 
loyalty is impossible. You desire to feel that 
through all the years you may walk by his 
side, come weal, come woe, from other sources, 
you may count upon his love as forever steadfast 
and enduring. 

" And to his eye 
There was but one beloved face on earth, 
And that was shining on him." 

It is impossible to know all this, do you say? 
Perhaps you cannot absolutely know it, but you 
can take the wise precautions which I have pointed 
out, to learn, at least, that you are not giving your- 
self to a man void of all honor. You can find in 
what estimation he is held by those who have 
known him longest. You can hold yourself free 
until you have had an opportunity to study his 
habits of thought and action. You can see 
whether they are generally pure and clean ; 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 171 

whether he holds his passions with the leash of 
self-control ; whether he is gentle, kind, and 
thoughtful. Girl as you are, you can, if you will, 
know all these things before you give your prom- 
ise. 

I have written of these things to-day because 
of a letter containing an earnest request that I 
would do so, and as I wrote, memories of those who 
took no heed of these matters, and in a few short 
years came to bitter grief, clustered thick upon 
me. They move me to repeat with greater ur- 
gency that no man is worthy to be your husband, 
to take your pure young womanhood into his 
keeping, unless he can show to you and your 
parents a clean life full of good purposes. 

One word more and I am done. I was reading 
the other day about the decision of a judge to 
whom an application for divorce had been made 
upon the plea of habitual drunkenness upon the 
part of the husband. The divorce was refused, 
the judge stating that the evidence showed the 
possession of knowledge by the woman of his 
habits before she married him. She voluntarily 
chose to become his wife, and therefore could not 
put away the responsibility assumed, even though 
he failed to keep his pledge of reformation. 



172 LIFE S GATEWAYS ; 

Did you ever think of this phase of the subject, 
girls, when you were meditating marriage with 
that pleasant young man to reform him ? No 
doubt you have a great deal of influence over 
him now. No doubt he means what he says 
when he promises to use self-control, and to do 
no more what is debasing his manhood and would 
render a wife utterly miserable as the years went 
by. Remember, however, while drinking in his 
earnest words, that at present you stand for him 
as the one thing above all others in the world 
which he desires, and that you are yet classed 
among the possible unattainables. There is some- 
thing in human nature that always renders what 
we may not have the most attractive and valuable 
of treasures, to be gained, if we have will and 
patience, at all costs. Unfortunately, there is 
another trait in this same human nature that 
often makes possession strip of its value the 
possessed. Women who marry men to reform 
them come too often into this category. 

The other side, however, which was presented 
by the judge aforementioned, is the one for you 
to think of. Of your own free will you marry 
this young man, knowing when you do so what 
may be the consequences. You are well aware of 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 73 

his weakness, and that even if it be not overcome, 
he will still be your husband and the father of your 
children. You deliberately choose to take the 
risk. Doing so, you will have no right to with- 
draw from the responsibilities thus assumed. You 
must bear the burden to the end, however dis- 
tant that may be, or otherwise fail utterly in 
doing your duty. 

Remember this truth — for truth it has proved 
to be in almost countless cases : if he reforms 
only to win you for his wife ; if there is no deep, 
inner conviction that for his own manhood's sake 
he must resist temptation, the chances are, nine 
out of ten, that once you are won, he will go back 
to his cups, and you will be called upon to en- 
dure tortures that you wot not of. 

Remember that reform must come from a con- 
viction that it is a thing apart from love or mar- 
riage as its mainspring. You have to consider, not 
your lover alone, not yourself, but the children 
that will gather round you, for whom you will, to 
a degree, be responsible. 

For those girls who deliberately give themselves 
to men because of the possession of money, there 
is little to be said. They must reap the bitter 
fruits of utter selfishness. They sell their bodies 



174 LIFE'S GATEWAYS; 

for gold, making it respectable by summoning the 
church and society to support the act. The 
children thus fathered and mothered will inevi- 
tably bear witness of the sin by which they are 
brought into the world. 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 75 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

MY FOREST FRIEND. 

"The elm that in summer was sweet to hear, 
And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year, 
And whistled and roared in the winter alone 
Is gone." 

GOOD-BYE, my dear old friend ! 

I had no thought our parting was so near, no 
vision of the doom impending over your vigorous 
life. I have watched the shafts of light that 
quivered athwart the eastern sky and shot through 
your tender, trembling leaves, which thrilled with 
joy at the coming of the beauteous morn ; I have 
seen you nod and whisper to your family group 
of your delight when the last rays of the setting 
sun sent their kisses back to brighten you into 
greater loveliness ; in the still watches of the 
night when the stars looked silently down upon 
the sleeping world, I have hearkened to your mur- 
muring in an unknown tongue of Nature's secrets ; 
I have seen you bend low before the mighty 
breath of the winter's storm, then straighten up 



176 LIFE'S GATEWAYS ; 

again as if defying the tempest's power; and I 
have gloried always in your beauty, your strength, 
and your undiminished vigor. 

And now you lie prone in the dust ! 

I heard the blows that were struck at your 
heart, and as each one fell, it seemed as if they were 
struck at my own. I knew that your life, the 
same in character with that which informs my 
human body, only less in degree of consciousness, 
was ebbing away and that you would rejoice my 
eyes with your glory no more. One by one, each 
swift following upon the other, came the sounds 
that told how fast the work of death was going 
on. Suddenly there came a pause ; then a mighty 
crash as if the tempest god had broken into fury ; 
a rush through the air with a sound that seemed 
fraught with agonizing protest ; and then you 
lay there, a fallen monarch shorn of your majesty 
and your power, dying by inches, and soon to 
disappear from my sight forever ! 

If I could have understood your language dur- 
ing the last moments of your life, how much of 
interest you might have told me. For many 
years you have stood there with your brothers 
and your friends watching the tide of events that 
flowed ever swiftly by. You have seen the 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 77 

forest's primeval solitudes, of which you formed 
a part, invaded and destroyed, as man came with 
his desire to conquer and to use all that is best 
in the world for his own comfort and enjoyment. 
You have heard from afar the sounds of strife 
and tumult which drew nearer and nearer, sur- 
rounding and hemming you in ; and yet the un- 
conscious lesson that you have taught has been 
always tranquillity and strength, both untouched 
by fear. 

And then another thought you have conveyed 
is that of always looking upward, of aspiring to 
the best, of trying to reach our highest ideals. 
That is what you have done, what every tree does 
when left to Nature's own methods. You were 
a part and belonging of the Infinite Mind, just as 
we are, only that our share is far greater and 
capable of a swifter expansion towards a union 
with the Divine. 

I believe that you had a spiritual part, a force, 

a power, which you were constantly giving forth 

to those who loved you. It is this subtle, silent 

force which enters in and invigorates those men 

and women who love the silent woods, and seek 

there rest from weariness which worldly struggles 

have brought to brain and body. 
12 



178 life's gateways ; 

I have wondered since you fell whether you did 
not yield to attack more easily than you would have 
done before your companions went down before 
the same destroyer. If you were a manifestation 
of Universal Love, as everything beautiful and 
strong and vigorous is declared to be, why may 
we not believe that love was a part of your 
nature, and the mainspring of that healing force 
of which I spoke before ? I believe it was, and I 
believe further that whoever goes forth into the 
woods with a spirit attuned to nature will always 
feel a sustaining force entering in to make him 
happier, stronger, and more content. 

And so in losing you I feel that I have lost a 
friend — a friend who was firm, enduring, stead- 
fast — a friend who returned to me as much as I 
gave. And though to people who look upon 
trees as fit only for lumber and firewood, my 
words may seem strained and fantastic, I do not 
fear that judgment from those who love the trees 
as I do, and who find in each and all a something 
that is akin to themselves in their better moods. 
To them these words from " The Infinite Mind 
in Nature " will bear a double meaning : 

" When we come really to love God or the 
Infinite Spirit of good, we shall love every part 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 79 

of God. A tree is a part of God. When we 
come to send out our love to it, it will send its 
love back, and that love — that literal mind and 
element coming from the tree to us — will enter 
our beings, add itself to them and give us its 
knowledge and power. It will tell us that the 
mind and force it represents of the Infinite have 
far better uses for man than to be turned into 
fuel or lumber. Then love will tell us that the 
forests piercing the air as they do with their bil- 
lions of branches, twigs, and leaves, are literal 
conductors for a literal element which they bring 
to the earth. This element is life-giving to man 
in proportion to his capacity for receiving it." 

Believing this, and having that personal love 
that comes from the intimate, if silent, communion 
for months that have grown into years, it is small 
wonder that I grieve for you, my friend, whose 
body while I write is being dismembered and 
borne away. I grieve and wonder why Nature's 
glorious achievements must always make way for 
man's desires. 



180 LIFE'S GATEWAYS; 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

GLORY OF THE SPRINGTIME. 

" Oh, come, then, quickly come ! 

We are budding, we are blooming; 
And the wind that we perfume 

Sings a tune that's worth the knowing." — Emerson. 

Over the beautiful elm tree that stands in view 
of the window at which I write has been thrown, 
within the last few days, a misty, shadowy, veil 
of green, so light and airy that it is only when 
the sun is shining that it takes on a look of reality. 
Through it the blue sky gleams with a glory 
beyond expression. Beyond the tree I can see 
the grass beginning to show the exquisite color- 
ing of the emerald when the light shines through, 
and I whisper gladly to myself, " Spring is here ! 
The long, long sleep is over, and the tree-world 
and the flower-world have wakened to objective 
life and work once more. Oh, the beauty and 
the glory of this awakening that clothes the earth 
in such resplendent garments, and thrills our 
hearts with gladness ! " 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. l8l 

Sometimes, after this awakening, the gray days 
come ; the clouds shut the sunshine away, and 
the cold winds sweep down mercilessly, so that it 
seems as if all of this new-found glory of bursting 
life must be indrawn again and disappear. But 
they pass away, these seasons of gloom, and we 
find that there has been no cessation of growth. 
Nature seems so glad to again express her inner 
self in outward form that she cannot easily be 
discouraged. 

Is there ever a time when the flowers tell such 
a delightful story as in the early springtime ? 
Passing along the street within the last few days, 
I have seen here and there great beds of the 
crocus arrayed in a glory of blossoms. They 
looked as if they were visiting with each other 
and rejoicing over their reincarnation into physical 
life. The sturdy little creatures stood arrayed 
in their brilliant coloring, bidding defiance to 
storm and cold, delighting the eye with their own 
beauty, and making a promise of that which is to 
come when their more delicate sisters and friends 
are moved by the sunshine's warmth to seek the 
outer world. As I looked at them, I could see in 
fancy the violets and the bluebells, the anemones 
and, a little later, the glorious roses bursting into 



1 82 life's gateways ; 

bloom and making in all their exquisite lives a 
song of rejoicing that as yet our inner senses 
cannot hear, but which we may feel to our heart's 
center. 

To me the spring is a perpetual Easter. It 
tells always a beautiful story of immortal life, of 
the renewing of the spirit — a story that never 
loses its significance. Out of the crucifixion of 
self will spring the glory of the higher life ; and its 
blossoms of love, of charity, of kindness, will 
make all life more beautiful. 

And there is another thought : If to the vege- 
table world the spring brings such a renewal of 
energy to be manifested outwardly, why should 
not the same be true with regard to human beings ? 
Why should there not be an answering thrill 
when the great pulse of Mother Earth begins to 
beat as her life-tides resume their flow, and 
humanity be aroused to more energetic action? 
I think we do feel its effects, although all uncon- 
scious perhaps of the cause. Did we live nearer 
to the heart of Nature, the change would be 
more perceptible, but even now we are conscious 
of the magnetic currents propelling to action in 
all business centers. New undertakings mark the 
coming of the season ; there is a propelling ten- 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 83 

dency towards putting off the old and putting on 
the new which is shown in a thousand different 
ways. It is the springtime of effort, the season 
when the body should receive vigor and health, 
and through that health the mental and spiritual 
become stronger in power of expression. 

And this brings me to the underlying thought of 
all that I have said. The renewal of the freshness 
and the beauty of the plant world in the spring 
is emblematic of what is possible with us all — 
that we may so renew ourselves, so to speak, that 
life may take on a meaning which is full of per- 
petual pleasure. Just as the plant uses its intelli- 
gence — an intelligence proportioned to the devel- 
opment of its consciousness — in seeking the 
highest outward expression possible to it, — for this 
is what it does, — so should man, who has reached 
self-consciousness, constantly renew both body 
and mind, bringing a blossoming into a more 
vigorous life. 

How may we do this, do you ask ? First, 
strengthening the body by healthy thought. 
Put away from you, as far as possible, visions of 
sickness, of disease, of death. While we know 
that in reality there is no death, only the giving 
up of the instrument which the self is using upon 



1 84 life's gateways ; 

the physical plane, yet we have no right to weaken 
that instrument by currents of thought that con- 
tain in them the elements of disintegration. 
Thoughts are things, and they possess a power 
and a force to build up or to destroy which it is 
hard to measure. That which gives vigor, which 
changes disease of body into ease, is a flow of 
pure, cheerful, determined, and decided thought, 
which is full of good will to the whole world. 
That which weakens is the depressed, fearful, 
gloomy thought ; thoughts of anger, of envy, of 
selfishness, of jealousy. It is the latter kind 
which brings sickness and suffering to one's self 
and to others, for they go forth in a stream that 
may strike, all unseen, one who has no power of 
resistance. Think the cheerful thought always, 
for in so doing it is not only drawing health to 
you, but it is helping everybody with whom you 
come in contact. And more than that, it will go 
forth a healing power to do work of which you 
have no conception. " Good will to others," 
wrote Prentice Mulford, " is constructive thought. 
It helps build us up. It is good for your body. It 
makes your blood purer, your muscles stronger, 
and your whole form more symmetrical in shape. 
It is the real 'elixir of life.' The more of such 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 85 

thought you attract to you the more life will you 
have. You draw, then, the best elements from 
all with whom you associate. If you send out a 
contrary order of thought, you draw to you from 
them the poisonous and destructive elements. 
These will hurt your body. Persons in this way 
are literally hated to death." 

These are strong words but true ones. They 
express a law which is absolute in its workings 
and as sure as any physical one. Upon the 
thought-plane are these forces for destruction, and 
they can only be successfully opposed by thoughts 
of good will, of a desire to do justice to all. of 
love to humanity. Such have a healing power 
far beyond any medicine that can be taken. 
" This is no myth of sentiment. It belongs to 
the same system of law whereby the sun gives 
heat, the winds blow, the tides move, the seed 
grows. In whatever mood you set your mind 
does your spirit receive of unseen substance in 
correspondence with that mood. . . . The Christ 
injunction, ' Do good to those who hate you,' is 
based upon a scientific fact and a natural law. 
So to do good is to bring to yourself all the ele- 
ments in nature of power and of good. To do 
evil is to bring the contrary destructive elements. 



1 86 life's gateways ; 

When our eyes are opened, self-preservation will 
make us stop all evil thought." 

Perhaps you will not believe this. You may 
think it overdrawn, but watch yourself the next 
time when you let anger hold sway over you, and 
see if, when the storm has passed, you are not 
weaker in body. See, too, when you spend a day 
overcome by discontented, gloomy thought, if 
you do not feel ill and less able to cope with the 
difficulties you are constantly meeting. 

And now to return to the spring. It seems to 
me that when everything is bursting forth into 
loveliness, when even the plant and the tree are 
endeavoring to obey harmoniously nature's bid- 
ding, it is easier to bring about the renewal of 
healthy thought — this thought full of good will 
toward friend and enemy alike. It is easier, too, 
to face discouragements bravely ; to feel that 
they come but to try the strength. It is easier 
to bear disappointment and to realize that it is 
only to make the spirit stronger for its upward 
climb. And no matter what your trial may be, 
that of your friend, your neighbor, is, perhaps, 
far harder to bear. 

" As the days pass swiftly onward one by one, 
Leaving all you've hoped and planned for still undone ; 



OR, HOW TO WIN REAL SUCCESS. 1 87 

As you see the shadows gather 

Thick before your hurrying feet, 
And the way seems very lonesome, 

And the path grows very steep, 

'Courage, friend, be not disheartened; lend a hand! 
And the faltering brother near you help to stand ! 
Just a little heavier, maybe, than your own. 
Is the load which he is bearing all alone. 

1 Yes, the days are passing swiftly, but we may 
Find a ray of light to cheer us on our way 
As we journey up the hillside, 

Shadows come but need not stay 
If we look for gleams of sunshine 

When the cloud has passed away." 



THE END. 



Fro)?i t lie press of the Arena Publishing Company. 



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Helen H. 
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The Literary Hit 
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For sale by all newsdealers, or sent postpaid by 

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Ft 



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press of the Arena Publishing Company. 



Helen It i6ar6ener'$ Essays anb Short Stories, 



Helen H. 
Gardener 



A Collection of 
stirring, unusual 
Stories, dealing 
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A THOUGHTLESS YES. 

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— Boston Transcript. 

Price, cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. 
FACTS AND FICTIONS OF LIFE. 

A Collection of Sparkling and Thoughtful Essays on the 
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— Louisville Courier Journal. 

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PRAY YOU, SIR, WHOSE DAUGHTER? 

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Mary 

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A Powerful 
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A Stirring 
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estate, the fate of whose owners is curiously interwoven 
with the three gigantic trees from which the place receives 
its name. Mrs. Lee strikes the note of heredity firmly, 
and the most tragic complication of her plot hinges upon 
the unlawful use of hypnotic power. The world of books 
is far too poor in well-told stories of the war, to accord 
anything less than enthusiastic welcome to this latest 
comer, so full of rich detail and striking scenes both North 
and South, and so winning in the even, impartial temper 
with which the sad story of the great struggle is inciden- 
tally set forth. 

It is a story full of pathos and replete with bright flashes of 
humor. — The Portland Oregonian. 

In " Margaret Salisbury " Mary Holland Lee seems to have 
seized all of the passions that are common to humanity and 
imprisoned them between the covers of this book; and yet there 
is no hysteria, for the humorous is blended deftly through it all; 
the fancy lingers here and there, the gentle summer breeze stirs 
the leaves, and in places we hear the drowsy hum of the bees, smell 
the faint odor of wind-blown roses, and above all the southern 
sky. There is a sensuous beauty in the story that appeals to 
healthy men and women. The author knows and feels deeply 
that this life is nut all, yet she seems to love the common things 
of earth and to have a sympathy for the lowly and the everyday 
that marks only the lofty soul. " Margaret Salisbury " is a 
readable story, and has enough of the salt of wisdom to save it; 
the universal cannot die. Its moral is on the side of right; the 
plot is well conceived, the story is ably written, and the book 
will doubtless have good success for many years to come. — 
Los Angeles Herald. 

Mrs. Mary Holland Lee weaves a hypnotic spell in the telling of 
the story of " Margaret Salisbury." The secret charm and force 
of the story, the reader must discover for himself. Mrs. Lee's 
conception of Margaret's character is grand. It is not often 
that a character, whose will is constantly pinioned by another's, 
commands both pity and admiration, but it is safe to say that 
no one will read this novel indifferently, or without experiencing 
both of these contrasting sensations. — Boston Herald. 

For sale by all newsdealers, or sent postpaid by 

Arena Publishing Co., Boston, Mass. 



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